Love Lessons
by QuantamTheory
Summary: Their truth has shattered and the pieces might never fit back together. Maybe they shouldn't even try. Sequel to "Life Lessons" and features the entire cast. Currently rated T for cussing and innuendo, but will probably go up as I go along. Cross-posted under the same author/story name on Archive of Our Own, where I can also post photos, links and a more mature content!
1. Chapter 1

Building a bomb was hard work.

And frustrating. And _hot_. Hot enough to make Maka wonder if having part of a Reaper's soul was worth the increased power it brought to their team. After they'd flattened a good chunk of the Death Room with their first attempt at a chain resonance, Lord Death had been forced to banish Maka's group practices to the desert beyond the city limits. If one of his private dimensions couldn't contain their havoc, Death City wouldn't stand a chance. Maka had successfully learned to control the new, more powerful chain resonance and put her team back into the DWMA's service, but trying to focus its explosive potential had, so far, eluded her.

They'd been developing and refining the new technique for months, working fruitlessly in the punishing heat, and Maka was beginning to think that a precise, controlled detonation was wishful thinking on Lord Death's part. The misery she'd been inflicting on her team weighed on her, but she resolutely pushed ahead. Lord Death was anxious for the weapon she was trying to create, and she was fiercely determined to make it happen. And it just might this time. She was holding their course, the resonance chain was strong, and the energy build was the biggest they'd managed yet. A little more velocity and they'd hit their target.

"I need a little more speed, Black Star," she said, preparing to rebalance everything to accept it.

 _This is it_ , she thought, _it's finally going to work!_

Her moment of triumph was short-lived. Black Star amped up so fiercely that Soul had a hard time keeping pace. His fingers were a blur on the piano in the Black Blood Room as he pushed himself, teetering on the fine line between manipulating its power and drowning in its madness. Maka knew her partner was the on the brink of the latter and hit him with her Grigori wavelength. It stabilized him but took her attention away from the group.

"I said a _little_ , Black Star!" she screamed, as the chain resonance wobbled, "You're going too fast! We can't keep up!"

"There's no such thing as too fast," he retorted, "What's the matter, too tiny to run with the big dog?"

Tsubaki tried to talk him down, but Black Star was feeling a need for speed, and nothing was going to stop him. Kid wanted to lend Maka some support, but his job was to build and contain their destructive potential, and she wouldn't be pleased if he neglected his work for her. He focused on his link with Liz and Patty instead, knowing that the current run wasn't going to last too much longer. He had to be ready and not let her down.

Sure enough, the group link began to crack, and the ground shifted beneath the feet of the dancers in the black blood room.

Tension, anger, and fear fought for dominance in Maka's voice, "It's slipping. Fuck, I'm going to lose it. Kid, go now! Go... _GO_!"

If he didn't release the force he'd built up, they could all very well be blown to kingdom come.

"Not stable enough, Kid!" Liz yelled, "Maka you've got to keep it steady for a minute!"

"I'm trying!"

She concentrated fiercely on the crumbling links and the world steadied. Only for a moment, but a moment was all Kid and his weapons needed. He twirled Maka to one side of the grand piano, while Liz and Patty closed in on the other.

"Locked on, Kid!" Patty shrieked, "Gotta a lot of noise, but our resonance factor's looking good!"

Kid took a deep breath and tried to stay calm, "Count it down, Liz."

Soul hit a crashing C chord, and Liz chimed in right on cue.

"Three…"

A jarring E minor

"Two…"

A massive G.

"One!"

Kid caught Liz and Patty's hands with perfect timing, and Maka launched herself at Soul, covering his fingers with her own. She clung to Soul, both of them bowing under the weight of their concentration as she helped him hit the keys for all they were worth. Together Maka and Soul were almost unstoppable, but in this case almost wasn't enough.

"Detonate!" Kid yelled, but it was too late. The resonance link shattered and the immense store of energy surged forward, uncontrolled. He threw up a shield of Reaper magic to funnel it away toward the desert, but it was quickly apparent that it wasn't going to go far enough. They were still well within the blast zone.

"No, no NO!" Maka's panicked scream echoed through the fragments of her once-perfect construct.

Pushing the ability harder than she ever had before, she tapped into the bit of Kid's power lodged inside her and used it to expand her Grigori soul. Poorly controlled bits of black lightning zipped over her winged blue aura, which she wrapped around her friends with only a second to spare before impact. She prayed it was enough to keep them all alive.

The explosion was incredible. Ten miles away, the residents of Death City saw a drawn-out flash of purple light. It was followed by an aftershock that rattled buildings on their foundations as a cloudy pillar of sizzling, madness-fueled Reaper energy shot into the sky. The ShakeAlert team at the Nevada Seismological Laboratory thought they'd picked up a major earthquake, NORAD went into high alert status, and US Homeland Security nearly wet their collective pants.

After what seemed like an eternity, the smoke cleared, the dust settled, and Maka's protective barrier fizzled away. The teenagers lying in the sand finally dared to open their eyes, pleasantly surprised that they still had eyes left to open.

"Is everyone okay?" Tsubaki asked anxiously, carefully lifting herself off of Black Star's back. He popped up like an exuberant cork and ran to the edge of the crater they'd blasted into the sandy earth.

"Look at the size of that fucking hole!" he cried, shooting an exultant fist into the sky.

"We were almost buried in it thanks to you!" Liz grabbed Patty and prevented her from joining him on the precipice.

Maka was on her hands and knees, head hanging low over the burning hot sand. "Issnot his fault," she slurred, "I asked him for more speed."

"Not all of it at once!" Liz snapped. The only thing keeping her from pushing Black Star into the hole was the knowledge that she'd need a crane to get him out again.

"Are you okay?" Soul asked Maka, sounding as worried as Kid felt. All of them were tired and exhausted, but Maka had driven herself to the breaking point more than once during these training sessions, and this was their most spectacular failure yet. They hurried over and carefully lifted her to her feet. In what had become rote practice, Soul looked Maka over for physical damage while Kid gauged her wavelength's condition.

Defeat made Maka snappish. "Will you both stop fussing? I swear you're like a couple of old ladies. I'm fine. I'd be better if we could _do_ this."

Soul caught Kid's eye, and the Reaper gave him the almost imperceptible signal they'd worked out for deciding when to call it a day.  
"We'll get it eventually," Soul told his partner.

"Just not today." her boyfriend added. He was worried - she'd dampered their personal bond; a sure sign that she didn't want him to worry about her. Which meant there was something to be worried _about_. He nodded at Tsubaki, who sent A-OK and Returning to Base signals to the military medical team Sid had assigned to watch over them from the safety of a purpose-built bunker on the City-side edge of their makeshift practice field.

"I don't want anyone quitting on account of me!" Maka insisted, stepping away from them and only staggering a little, "I can go again."

She ignored the flair of anxiety that shot across Kid's wavelength and prepared to argue that she was capable of another run. Patty interrupted her by bursting into tears.

"I don't want to do it again!" the younger Thompson sister wailed, "I'm tired, and I'm hot, and I want to go home. I'm going to burn up and die in this fucking desert! I hate it! _I hate it_!"

She kicked the sand viciously, and everyone but Liz took a wary step back. When Patty hit her limit, anybody was fair game. Liz tried to put an arm around her sister but got batted away with a shriek.

"Don't touch me; you're just going to make me hotter!"

"I don't think you or Patty should push yourselves anymore, Maka," Tsubaki said gently, "And it's not just you guys. I'm tired too, and I could use a bath like you wouldn't believe!"

Liz rolled her eyes at Maka, "You getting the idea that you're not putting any of us out by stopping for the day? We're never going to get this if we all die of heat stroke. Besides, I have tickets to see Esperanza Spaulding tonight, and I'm going even if I have to show up with sand in my hair and no makeup on!"

With Liz, dedication could go no further. Most of the team had no idea what she was talking about, but Soul perked up immediately at the jazz singer's name.

"How'd you score those?" the Junior Death Scythe's voice was a fifty-fifty split of admiration and jealousy, "I didn't even know she was coming to town!"

"She's not," Liz told him airily, "She's going to be at the Boom Boom Room in Seattle. 8 pm tonight. Do you wanna come with me? I can bring a guest."

"Hell, yeah!" Soul gave her a companionable high five. Then he told his partner in no uncertain terms that he was going home. Liz might be willing to show up looking less than perfect, but he was not. He was going to need at least twenty minutes for his hair mask alone.

"It's already four o'clock! How are you going to get to Seattle by eight?" concern for her friends' happiness and well-being was Tsubaki's default condition, even when she was sweaty and miserable and had a bra full of sand.

Liz jerked her chin in Kid's direction, "Friends in high places," she replied, grinning smugly. She knew Kid didn't like to mention his ability to open portals to anywhere in the world, and she was kind enough not to bring it up.

"Dad's sending you, not me," Kid replied, "I'm certainly not waiting around all night to bring you home!"

"Yeah, god forbid you should do anything nice! You're such an asshole." his sister retorted. So much for being kind. She gave him her nastiest look, tossed her sandy hair in his face and marched off toward the Academy van weaving its way toward them around the potholes left by previous explosions.

"I'm not an asshole!" Kid told the rest of the group plaintively.

"You keep telling yourself that!" Black Star patted Kid's shoulder in mock encouragement, "Maybe one day it will come true."

"I'm not!" Kid repeated, elbowing Black Star in the ribs, "We have a date!"

He waved a defensive hand between himself and Maka, who had finally gotten her breath back and was using it to apologetically encourage Patty to stop crying.

"Yeah, we do," she confirmed, smiling despite her obvious exhaustion. Kid offered her his arm, and she took it gratefully, knowing that the gesture combined gentlemanly manners with an offer to help her hide her wobbly knees. Maka deeply appreciated both. She tucked her hand into his elbow and in spite of the dirt and the heat, pressed her cheek against his sleeve.

"Where are you guys going?" Tsubaki tried not to sound jealous over the fact that Kid and Maka were probably off to do something profoundly romantic while she'd be accompanying Black Star, Kilik and Patty to a movie featuring car chases, explosions, and almost no plot at all.

"Oh, just for dinner and then for a drive out here." Maka knew what poor Tsubaki's evening looked like and didn't want to add insult to injury by elaborating on her plans

Soul wrinkled his nose, "Out here? Do you not get enough of this place already?"

"There's going to be a meteor shower tonight, and the desert is a great place to watch it!" Kid enthused.

Black Star looked disgusted, "Dude, you are so lame. You really driving out here to see stars falling and shit? You should come with us and see some real driving and explosions!"

They'd known each other all their lives, and Maka knew just how to get under Black Star's skin. Of course, the reverse was true, too, but right now it was her turn to be snarky. She put all the innocence she could muster into her voice when she asked if blasting Kid's car through the desert at a hundred and ten miles an hour in the dark didn't count as _real_ driving. Black Star shot her a dirty look, thinking once again that it simply wasn't _fair_ that Maka, and occasionally Liz, were the only people that Kid allowed to touch the Jaguar F-Type convertible his father had given him as a seventeenth birthday present.

"Still lame," he muttered sulkily as they climbed into the van for the return trip to Death City. The medical team had kept the air conditioning running, and it was blessedly chilly inside. Patty attacked a cooler full of water, pausing to take three huge gulps from one before passing bottles out to the others.

Maka briefly ran hers over her face and neck before she opened it, shivering in relief as the icy cold met her overheated skin. Droplets of condensation ran down her neck and elicited a little gasp of pleasure as they disappeared between her breasts. The performance left Kid's mouth feeling a little dry, and it had nothing to do with the hour he'd just spent in the desert.

"How soon can I pick you up tonight?" he asked, trying to sound casual.

She gave him a teasing, sidelong grin, knowing exactly what kind of reaction her calculated little routine had gotten her, "I have to go report to the Death Room as soon as we get back and let your dad know how we did."

"I have some work to do for him, but it shouldn't take very long. Can you be ready by six?"

The grin got even wider, "Sure, but the meteor shower won't start until eleven and dinner won't take us four hours."

Kid's voice was low and full of innuendo, "I'm sure we can find _something_ to do."


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey, Miss Maka! How'd it go?" The seven-foot tall keeper of the Death Room tipped its masked face to one side as if bending a non-existent ear toward her. In the past year, Maka had gotten used to the fact that the Lord Death she'd always known was a construct that Kid's father used to help him operate simultaneously on multiple levels. She wasn't, however, comfortable with the idea of looking into Death's almost-human eyes, so like Kid's, and admitting defeat. She knew it silly, and a little cowardly, but it was easier to retreat into her comfort zone and head to the Death Room for disappointing official reports. Failures didn't seem _quite_ as awful when you were explaining them to a loopy seven-foot-tall puppet.

"Not so good," Maka admitted, and they allowed themselves to slump in mutual defeat for a moment.

"Well, you made an awfully big bang this time!" the puppet finally said, attempting to brighten things up. Maka wasn't having any of it.

"Yeah, and I lost control of it.' she said bitterly 'I could have killed us all if Kid hadn't stepped in. And we were three miles short of the target even with him deflecting the power in the right direction. In a real-life scenario that could mean the difference between taking out a military target and blowing up a preschool."

An oversized hand patted her back consolingly, "There, there. It's not all bad news. The demonstrations, especially today's, are impressive. You ought to hear the phone calls we're getting! Nobody but us knows that we don't have control of the Soul Bomb technique, but they do know it's powerful. For a lot of our concerns, the threat alone will be enough. Once you learn to control it, we'll make a few modifications, and then we'll be able to back up that threat."

"What kind of modifications?" panic compressed Maka's lungs. She was nowhere _close_ to being in control of the technique, and he was already talking about modifying it?

The puppet retreated a little, clasping its hands behind its back and looking up at the clouds scudding across the too-blue sky. All it needed to do was whistle a little tune to make the picture of false innocence complete.

"Well," Death finally ventured, "If we could add an extra source of power….."

"More!" Maka interrupted, "What we have now could take out half a city. How much bigger does it need to be?"

"I'm thinking of destructive capability, not size. I'd like to have the option of completely obliterating an enemy. If an opponent's soul were to be used as fuel, it might be utterly consumed."

The cheerful voice made the ominous statement all the more frightening. Maka wanted to ask what the hell needed obliterating so badly but was afraid to ask. She probably wouldn't get a straight answer, anyway. Even though she was involved in creating the weapon, it's potential use was currently on a classified level way over her head. And in any case, how was she supposed to _do_ it?

She must have looked as horrified as she felt because Death abruptly changed the subject.

"Well, enough about that!" he exclaimed, "Tell me how you're getting along personally. Been practicing your lessons?"

If there was such a thing as mental whiplash, Maka was pretty sure she was experiencing it.

"Uh...yes. I have, Sir," she stumbled over her words as she tried to pull her thoughts away from mysterious mass destruction and shove them toward the exercises in controlling Reaper magic she'd been receiving, "I'm doing a little better on those. Not great yet, but it's getting easier."

"And what about your personal bond with Kid? How are you doing with that?"

The question held such an undercurrent of seriousness that Maka got the impression she momentarily had every aspect of Lord Death's complete, undivided attention.

"We've got it under control," she said, grateful to finally able to give an unconditionally positive report, "We can block it completely if we need to, even when one of us is trying to break through. And we can open or close it as much as we need to, sort of like a volume control. It's not overwhelming like it was in the beginning."

Since forming their soul bond, she and Kid had worked hard to make controlling it an unconscious habit. They generally kept it at a level that allowed them to be aware of each other, but without its original intensity, the link was no longer a distraction. Maka had grown to cherish the little bond that gave her a direct line to Kid's soul, and knowing that he felt the same way gave her a deep and adored-feeling satisfaction.

Lord Death nodded approvingly.

"Well, that's good news! Okey-dokey, I think we're done for today. Off you go!"

"Oh...O-okay," Maka faltered, startled by the sudden dismissal. Anxiety took a firmer hold as she wondered if she'd displeased him with her poor overall progress. She turned toward the corridor leading from the Death Room, suddenly and acutely aware of the sharp guillotine blades hanging from its ceiling. For the first time in a long while, they seemed like manifestations of potential failure hanging over her head.

A large finger dropped on her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.

"Oh no! Not that way!" the puppet spun her around and pointed toward the ornate mirror on the other side of the Death Room, "I want to see you do your stuff!"

"Besides," it added slyly, "This is much faster, and don't you have a date tonight?"

"Uh, yes," Maka answered weakly. She was beginning to doubt her sanity in thinking that dealing with Lord Death's alter ego was better than talking to the man himself.

She marched over to the mirror, determined to make a good showing. Her green eyes narrowed in concentration and then closed as her fingertips made light contact with the cold, smooth glass. She took a deep breath and focused on the bit of Kid's power that resided inside of her. Encouraging it to draw up her arms and through her fingers, she visualized her bedroom. Purple sparks zipped over the mirror's frame and lit up the insides of her eyelids. An electrical zing shot from her hands all the way to the top of her head, and the pressure against her skin disappeared.

"Very good!" Death exclaimed, leaning in to examine the portal she'd opened.

She smiled, warmed by the praise.

"I'll report back after our next practice," she promised.

"Okay! Fine! Great! Now scoot along," The puppet agreed cheerfully, as she stepped through the mirror, "Have fun tonight! Don't do anything I wouldn't do! Wait, I take that back. There isn't much I wouldn't do. That's not good advice," It paused for a moment, tapping its fractured mask impatiently, "Think, think, think…..good advice...good advice...Oh! I've got it! Don't drink over-brewed tea!" it called to Maka's retreating back.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** _Huge hugs to the folks who are reading this, especially the ones taking their valuable time to comment. My brother's passing last year was followed by a severe cardiac issue of my own. Recovering from both took me away from the fandom and writing for a long time, so all the encouragement is appreciated more than I can ever possibly express. Especially since the SE fandom has died off and/or changed a lot. Individual comment responses will be included at the end of each chapter, but I want to give shoutouts to REDEADED, Wordfiend, DJKatt, lochn3ss and Sempiternal Dreamer. You guys are literal lifesavers._

* * *

"I'm concerned, Dad."

Lord Death dropped the sample death list his son had prepared.

"About what?" he asked gently. Kid was obviously preoccupied this afternoon, but it wasn't like him to blurt out confidences. Having the boy come to him for advice about the worry constricting his soul wavelength warmed Death right through.

"Maka. That piece of my soul she has..." Kid said slowly, "I'm...I'm not sure it's doing good things for her." It was hard for him to say it out loud; as if the vocalizing the words would manifest his growing fear into reality.

His father responded by turning his head slightly and staring very intently at nothing; a disconcerting habit he had when focusing on other aspects and dimensions simultaneously. Kid often wondered if he looked as otherworldly when he did it. He'd worked up the courage to ask Liz about it once. She said he did, then added in typical big-sister fashion that nobody noticed because he looked weird most of the time, anyway. Family could be less than helpful cometimes.

Death gave his head a microscopic shake and came back to the reality Kid was currently residing in, "I'm talking to her right now." he said, steepling his fingers together thoughtfully,"She seems to be doing fine from my perspective. She's getting better at manipulating the Soul Bomb technique, your resonance team is back online, and she's doing an amazing job with the enhancement there. And both of you are doing well at controlling your personal bond."

"I worry about what it's taking out of her." misgiving tightened Kid's lips, "She's doing too much. Class president, head of Spartoi, head of our team, battling it out with Black Star and Ox for the most pre-Kishin takedowns, and she's a straight-A student on top of it."

"She was all of those things before you started going out with her," his father pointed out, wondering if he'd have to remind his son not to let personal feelings color his judgment.

"Last year she didn't have part of a Reaper soul and wasn't learning how to control it." Kid straightened his sleeves, unconsciously soothing himself with the little exercise in neatness. The Reapers winced in mutual distaste as a tiny stream of sand spilled out of his left cuff and disappeared into the antique Persian rug.

"And last year she wasn't your personal weapons factory, either." Kid couldn't help adding.

" _Our_ personal weapons factory," his father corrected, "And not the only one we have, may I remind you. Don't try to act like you're above the need for them, Kiddo. Playing pacifist isn't an option for you. Our family has a role to play in this world, and sometimes it requires force. A lot of it. You're going to have to face and accept that in spite of your personal feelings. You'll have control of an army someday, and you can't be afraid to use it. As far as the weapon Maka's creating, well, you know as well as I do that if the situation on the moon changes, your team's successful use of the Soul Bomb technique might be our only chance for a favorable resolution."

"I know, and you're right," Kid admitted, "But I worry that we'll never perfect the technique if Maka's stretched too thin. She's exhausting herself."

"I'm assuming you've spoken to her about your concerns." Lord Death doubted Kid would come to him first. About anything.

"Of course I have. She says she's fine."

"Maybe she should come over here and join us. She just left the Death Room."

"I'm sure she wants to go clean up," Kid said shortly, "You know we have a date tonight."

"Yes. Which leads me to wonder why you're working on the death list instead of getting ready yourself." his father teased, hoping to lighten the mood a little.

Kid shot him one of the pissy looks universal to teenagers everywhere, even inhuman ones.

"You wanted my list by Thursday morning, and I'm turning it in early. Is that a problem?"

Lord Death raised his palms in surrender, "Not at all. You're doing a good job, son. I agree with every name you've come up with. There are some missing in the gray areas, but you've found all the major problems that need handling."

"I apologize for snapping," Kid said, looking ashamed of himself, "I don't mean to take my frustrations out on you. As I said, I'm worried. Maka's practically living on those disgusting green health juice things she makes, and she's been spending Black Star-level amounts of time at the gym. She fell asleep at seven o'clock the other night and didn't wake up until morning."

"No harm done, Kiddo. But don't get too worked up, okay? I'm sure Maka is tired - she pushes herself hard. But falling asleep early isn't a sign of impending doom. You get comfy with a good book or a movie, and sometimes you just drift off."

"It's not that I _minded;_ she needs all the rest she can get. But it's extremely unsettling to have someone fall asleep while you're making out with them."

"Oh," his father grimaced, "Ouch. Okay, that's _really_ tired."

Kid arched an elegant eyebrow, "Exactly."

* * *

 **RESPONSES!**

Arantir \- Thank you for your vote of confidence. I hope this lives up to your expectations!

DJKatt \- Your comments and insights are always deeply appreciated. I'm glad the rising action feels right!

Wordfiend \- You are the only person with whom I can have a serious conversation about the physics of a Reaper death magic explosion, whether or not it would create Fulgurite and, if so, what would that shit look like?


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** I'm sending out huge thank you hugs to all the people who are taking the time to read this. Extra big thanks go to the people who are giving even more of their time to leave a review. As always, if you have a thought or suggestion, I'd love to hear it! Individual review responses are at the end of the chapter.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 4**

Maka closed her Death Room portal and shook her hands vigorously. The flow of magic through them itched something fierce; like an electric shock running into each fingertip. Kid said it would stop after she'd used the power long enough, but it hadn't abated yet, and she wondered how long "long enough" was. Kid's sense of time wasn't nearly as skewed as his father's, but he was still a Reaper, and he didn't think of a year or two the way the average person did.

Still wiggling her fingers, Maka wrinkled her nose in distaste at her reflection in the mirror. She was a mess. It was going to take some serious time to get herself decently clean, let alone ready for a date. A streaky mix of sweat, sunscreen, and sand coated her skin, and the less said about her hair, the better. When she pulled the latter from its ponytail, she did it with her head hanging out of her bedroom window so the resulting sand shower wouldn't end up on her floor. They lived in a student apartment building in eccentric Old Town, so she was sure the neighbors had seen weirder things. Leaning a little further over the sill, she gave her scalp an energetic scrub, which loosened up the remaining sand while dissipating the zinging in her hands at the same time. Maka was all for multitasking.

With that part of what she'd come to think of as her decontamination process complete, she headed to the kitchen for some water to stave off the headache building behind her eyes. Some wheatgrass juice and vitamins wouldn't do her any harm, either. Then she'd check over and revise the day's progress notes while trying to work up enough energy to hit the shower. Mulling over possible variable changes that she might try during practice the next day, she yanked open her bedroom door and nearly scared her partner to death.

"Jesus!" Soul exclaimed, dropping his Playstation controller, "Where the hell did you come from?"

"The same place I always come from when you ask that question," she replied, as the blue plastic device skidded across the tile toward her.

"I will never," he said, grabbing his chest dramatically, "get used to you being able to walk through the fucking walls."

"I walk through the _mirrors_ ," she reminded him smugly, bending to retrieve the controller, "And I don't hear you complaining when it gets you places faster."

"I never said it was inconvenient. Just freaky. You could at least yell and tell me you're back so I won't have a stroke when you come flying out of nowhere."

She nodded at the TV, "Like you'd have heard me over that thing. Why are you playing games right now anyway? Aren't you supposed to be beautifying yourself for your jazz thingy?"

Soul pointed at the clean clothes he'd piled on the coffee table, "I was getting ready to. Just needed to sit down for a minute."

He eyed her critically and then suggested that sitting down once in a while might do her some good, too. Maka made a face at him and went to get her water.

"And get sand and sweat all over the couch like you're doing?" she asked, opening the cabinet next to the refrigerator, "Couldn't you sit on the upholstery _after_ you shower? Boys are so gross. At least I sit in my desk chair, and it wipes off."

Soul looked very put-upon as he turned the TV off, "Fine. I'll go now. Unless you want to go first."

Maka shook her head, "No, you go ahead. I have some work to do before Kid comes over."

She padded back into her room and settled herself at her desk with her notes. The sight of them made her headache a little worse, and she decided that it wouldn't hurt to take a peek at her email before she got down to work. She'd sent her mother a note earlier in the day and felt a jolt of excitement when she saw that Kami had responded. Her mother's communications, usually in the form of postcards and the occasional letter, had suddenly changed a month ago when an email address appeared out of the blue on a little slip of folded paper her father had given her.

Maka was sure there was a good reason that she'd never had a phone number for her mother, and that her letters got to Kami through some kind of mail drop that Spirit handled. When she'd gotten the address, Maka had been a little tempted to see if she could backtrack the IP address and find out what part of the world the emails were coming from, but she was sure that DWMA security protocols were far too smart for that. Besides, she respected the rules and her mother's privacy too much to do it.

Whatever the reason, she was glad modern technology had finally made its way into their relationship. It made her mother seem more present. More real. Letters felt very formal, and Maka usually stuck to basic facts in them. Mainly facts about school, training, and how annoying her father was. Sometimes she sought advice on how to achieve more strength or improve a technique, but she never let loose about personal things like she did in her emails.

In a virtual environment, she felt free to share the little particulars about her life that she was sure Kami longed for. She could chat about what to do with her hair (she'd decided to leave it long), or a new recipe that she'd tried (it was disgusting, and Soul had threatened her with bodily harm if she ever tried to substitute cauliflower for rice again.). Best of all, she'd finally been able to confide the wonders of being in love. The email that her mother had just responded to with such pleasing promptness had detailed a drive up the California coast, and the romance of watching whales breach in the San Francisco Bay with Kid. Well, mostly detailed, anyway. She'd discreetly left out the part that involved partial nudity and the hood of Kid's car. She was sure Kami couldn't wait to weigh in with girl talk and a little motherly dating advice. Maka opened her mother's message with anticipation, but its contents quickly dulled the sparkle in her eyes and chased the flush from her cheeks. It wasn't what she'd been expecting at _all_.

 _Maka,_

 _I've noticed that your boyfriend and other trivial things seem to be taking up more of your letters, and I've got to say I'm disappointed. I know you think you're in love, dear, but I hate to see you spending so much of your time and mental resources on a boy, especially Kid. There are things about Reapers you don't know, Maka, but my biggest concern is for your success. I want you to feel that coming from your own accomplishments, not from having a boyfriend. That bond you created with him is a serious thing, and I don't want your relationship to become any more intense than it already is. I'm afraid you're going to end up hurt, and in more ways than one. I'm sure this isn't what you wanted to hear, but I want you to think about what I've said. I know I can count on you to make the right choice._

 _Love always,_

 _Mama_

The words were like a punch to the gut, and Maka slumped under their impact. She'd never known that her mother disapproved of her boyfriend, let alone how deeply that disapproval went. Adrenaline shot through her with a zing almost as sharp as Reaper magic and doubt carved an immediate and insidious path through Maka's thoughts. _Was_ she too involved with Kid? Could that be why she couldn't make the new technique work? They'd made a solemn promise to themselves and each other not to put their relationship ahead of their duties, but was she breaking that oath without realizing it? She sat back in her chair, hands tented over her mouth, thinking so hard that the headache she'd been fighting off bloomed into stupendous life

She honestly didn't see how she could work any harder. The time she and Kid spent alone didn't take away from her homework, or on the prep for her resonance team, or the development of their new technique. As for practices, she could only work her friends so hard. The Soul Bomb attempts in addition to regular practices meant they were already doing double duty, and nobody did a good job when they were too exhausted. She'd upped her personal training as much as she could without cutting too deeply into her study time or her sleep. And her mother didn't know how much _better_ Maka slept with Kid's body curled around hers in his big soft bed. His warmth and protection gave her peace that the fluffy pink quilt on her own narrow bed could never match. On days when she'd worked out until she could barely move he ran her hot Epsom salt baths and rubbed her aching muscles. When they quizzed each other on homework, it made learning even easier. Especially when they rewarded themselves for correct answers with kisses. Challenging each other on discussion topics made thinking clearer and provided them with alternate points of view. Kami certainly didn't know how Maka's tension drained away after Kid made love to her. Or about the little bursts of joy that happened when she felt his eyes on her across a room and knew how adored she was. Maka was replenished and renewed by giving her love, felt secure and safe in the warmth of her bond with Kid. It could never hurt her….could it?

Panic rose, and she wondered if he was back yet. She needed to talk to him about this; get his perspective. More than that, she needed to feel his arms around her, soothing her until she could think straight again. Or was this precisely the kind of neediness her mother was warning her about? Wildly confused, she grabbed her notebook, opened up her mirror, and dashed through it. For once, she completely ignored the prickling in her fingers.

* * *

 **RESPONSES!**

 **book-thot:** With encouragement like that, I'll definitely keep writing 3

 **DJKatt:** I'm sorry you lost some sleep but grateful that you liked this chapter. It's hard to find that thin line between "complicated" and "bad" in Kid's relationship with his father. Poor Lord Death is spread so thin and is so very clueless about some things.

 **Arantir:** I'm so glad you liked Life Lessons, and it feels great to be back and working on this sequel!


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Huge thanks to all you readers and reviewers. I just finished chapter 15, and am (maybe) halfway through! Individual reviewer responses are at the end of the chapter!

* * *

 _._

 _"You're my favorite place to go when my mind searches for peace." - Kristen Corley_

 _._

 _._

 _._

Kid was putting away his cufflinks when Maka's distress smacked him through their bond. It was followed a moment later by Maka herself, who tore through the mirror in his closet like the hounds of hell were after her.

"What's wrong?" he asked, catching her by the shoulders and rubbing them soothingly. He looked her over anxiously, trying to figure out the source of her trouble.

"Look at this!" she shrieked, holding up a notebook. Kid recognized it as the one she used for their resonance team notes. It looked fine to him, but apparently it was causing a major problem.

"I—"

She cut him off, "All of this! I've put so much thought into this."

"You—" he tried again but to no avail.

"We've all been killing ourselves out in the fucking desert trying to make the new technique work!" she shook the notebook so furiously that Kid had to lean back to avoid being hit in the face, " _I'm trying as hard as I can_!"

She stopped, overcome by emotion, and Kid was finally able to get an entire sentence in.

"I know you are!' he exclaimed, dodging the flapping pages, "Did my dad say something to you?"

Maka's indignation disappeared as if by magic, leaving her deflated and desolate. She hugged her notes against her chest for a moment before answering him.

"Not him. My mom," she said quietly, "I got an email from her. She doesn't….she's unhappy about us."

Now it was Kid's turn to look freaked out. The look accompanied a cold, sinking feeling in his stomach. He didn't doubt that Maka loved him, but she'd loved Kami even longer. Would she leave him if Kami demanded it?

"We've been going out for a year and a half!" he exclaimed, "And she's just now getting around to voicing her disapproval?"

He abruptly turned back toward the cufflink box. Saying something nasty about his girlfriend's beloved mother wasn't going to help matters, and he needed a moment to get himself under control. He carefully returned the white gold skull links to their proper place on the black velvet lining, first checking to make sure there wasn't any sand stuck in the clasps. All the while, he wracked his brain trying to figure out how to respond to the shocking development

"I know," Maka tossed her notebook onto the central island and pushed her dirty hair back, "I sent her an email about our trip to see the whales, and that's what I got back. She's worried that we're getting too serious or something."

Kid lowered the etched glass lid on the cufflink box and closed the drawer it resided in.

"Well," he said slowly, "She's not the only person who believes that. Your dad and Professor Stein probably agree with her."

Maka shook her head, "They're both overprotective and crazy. My mom isn't, so if she thinks we…" she broke off and flung herself wildly into Kid's arms. He rocked backward with the impact, then hugged her tightly to steady himself emotionally as well as physically.

"I value her opinion so much," Maka said into his shoulder, "But I'm doing all I can! I'm not goofing around with you instead of doing my best. I swear I'm not."

Kid rubbed the back of her tense neck, "No, you're not. Just the opposite. If she was here instead of on assignment, she'd see how hard you're working. She'd be telling you to take it easier instead of worrying that you're distracted and not doing enough! Christ, Maka, you're already killing yourself."

She inhaled shakily, and when she let it out, Kid felt her bottom lip tremble against his chest.

"Well, she's not here," she said, "Maybe she has more perspective than I do. Than either of us does. We try hard not to let ourselves be distracted, and I don't feel like we are, but what if that's not true?"

"It's not true," he promised her.

Maka's fingers twisted into the back of Kid's shirt, inadvertently pulling the tails out and freeing the sand trapped beneath them. The grains danced across the ebony floorboards and made a small pile at his heels. It broke their solemn mood, and for once he was grateful for their filthy work environment.

"Okay, _now_ I'm distracted," he announced, squirming, "and I need a broom."

Maka peered over his shoulder, "Yeah, that's kind of a mess,"

"And that's just the sand that _didn't_ go down the back of my pants," he complained.

"I keep telling you to work out in a swimsuit like Soul and BlackStar do." she reminded him, reaching under the shirt to brush the remaining sand off his back. Kid made a face that encompassed both the additional mess and her suggestion.

"So not me," he said, "They're more about comparing their tans and getting off on the explosions than they are about making this happen. I dress for work because this is the most important job we have right now."

Kid stepped back and tipped Maka's chin up, "I know this technique is more on you than it is on me, but I want to back you up as much as I can. We need the weapon, but more importantly, I don't want to let you down."

Maka caressed the hand that held her face, "You have never let me down." she said, then gave him an impish smile, "Except the time you abandoned me at that Russian factory. There was that."

"We were in ninth grade!" Kid protested, "And I was a crazy ass on top of it. Do you...did you really feel like I abandoned you?"

"I'm teasing you," her smile became gentle, "I swear one of these days I'm going to get you to figure out when someone is just, pardon the term, kidding around."

"I'm always serious when it comes to you." he said, kissing her knuckles, "And I know how serious you are about your work. Dad and I both know that you're giving a hundred and ten percent. No matter what your mother says, you're doing the best job anybody could do, okay?"

The mention of her mother knit Maka's eyebrows together in a pensive frown, "I guess I know that. I just hate to think that she doesn't understand _us_. I couldn't get through any of this without you. I don't just love you; we're a team just like Soul and I are."

Kid leaned down and gave her a slow, deep kiss, letting his soul speak to hers as he did.

"Well, okay, not _exactly_ the same kind of team Soul and I are." she murmured when their tongues were back in their respective mouths. She felt him smile against her lips before he pulled her head down to her shoulder. He cuddled her for a while, wrapping her wavelength with his and steeping her in tenderness before he spoke again.

"Would it help if I wrote to your mom?"

"Mmmm. Maybe." Maka was relaxed now, and felt able to think critically again, "I'll email her back later and explain things. I've been telling her a lot more personal stuff than she's used to, so maybe she got the wrong idea. If we both tell her, it might make her feel better."

She snuggled her head into the crook of his neck and made a small, contented noise, "You know, I'm not sure I'm up to eating out tonight, and Nadine's not planning on us for dinner here. Soul's going to that concert with Liz; how about if we go to my place and cook?"

"Sounds great to me," Kid answered. A little domestic closeness sounded just right, "I have to shower first, though. I'm way too disgusting to touch food."

"Same."

"Would you care to join me?" Kid asked, giving a formal half-bow and gesturing toward the bathroom. She gave him a saucy grin.

"If I do, are you going to scrub my hair and rub soap all over me?" she asked, running her fingers down his chest and hooking them into his belt loops.

"Only if you return the favor."

"And once we're all clean...you know how you pick me up and I wrap my legs around your waist?"

"I'm familiar with the maneuver, yes." Kid took one of her hands and curled it over his growing erection, "The one where I slide this inside you, and we make love in all the steam and hot water and then decide we shouldn't do it again because we almost drown when we come?"

"Yes," Maka's eyes glittered with lust and mischief, "That's the one. Can we do that?"

Kid reached down and yanked her tank top over her head, heedlessly spraying more sand across his closet floor.

"Oh, we're _definitely_ going to do that."

* * *

 **Responses!**

 **multyfangirl20:** We're definitely on the same wavelength! And thanks for letting me use that great line you gave me!

 **bqdtc,** **hs9fp** , **sJajY** , & **wGftF** : Thanks!

 **BlackKrow:** Kami definitely has a hold on Maka, but there are some other factors that will be contributing to her stress level. And Kid's!


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** This is the most nervewracking chapter I've ever posted. It's either gonna make the story or kill it - let me know which! Replies to the lovelies who left previous commenters are at the end of the chapter!

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* * *

'Shocking' is like a bolt from the blue. It is something external that ruptures your world.  
-Naomi Klein

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"I feel so much better." Maka sighed an hour later. Her reflection in the vanity mirror gave Kid a contented smile as she leaned her head back against him.

"Headache gone?" he asked, continuing to comb out her damp hair. She'd alarmed him by downing two Aleve, a magnesium capsule and a potassium supplement for her aches and pains after they'd showered.

Maka nodded and took a sip of the water he'd brought her.

"Yep. I'm starving, though. Not that you don't look amazing in that bathrobe, but let's get you dressed and go make dinner."

She shivered as the teeth of the tortoiseshell comb tingled across her scalp, "Well, after you get done doing some more of that."

"Anything else you'd like me to do more of?" he teased, carefully working out a snarl.

Maka giggled, "I can think of a couple things."

He bent and hugged her from behind, noticing that the shoulders beneath the thin t-shirt she'd put on felt fragile. She'd lost weight recently; pounds that her already-slim frame couldn't afford to be without. He worried once again that she was giving up too much of herself, or that blending her soul with his was too much for a human to handle.

"I'm okay," Maka assured him, kissing the black silk covering Kid's forearm, "I promise."

"I hope so," he said, "I can't help worrying a little though. I don't want anything to happen to you. I love you so mu-"

He broke off as the mirror sprang to life, and his father's puppet appeared on the shimmering surface. Kid and Maka jerked backward with shocked gasps. Lord Death had always been respectful of their privacy, and such an intrusion had never happened before.

"Both of you. Death Room. Now!" the silly voice was not in evidence when the command was given.

"Of course, Father," Kid said, "Just let me get dressed and-"

The bone mask melted into a terrifying scowl and leaned against the mirror, which bowed out to accommodate the pressure of the angry creature straining against it. Maka cringed, half expecting shards of glass to explode at her.

"NOW!" the puppet snarled menacingly, "GO!"

"Yes sir!" Kid exclaimed and the shimmery light disappeared, leaving their frightened faces reflecting back at them.

Maka leapt up and headed to the full-length mirror in the closet, but Kid grabbed her hand.

"Let's go to Dad's office. Whatever's happening is important enough that I want to see him in person."

They dashed toward the stairs, while Maka alternately wondered what on earth the emergency was and thanked her lucky stars that Kid's father hadn't popped in on them fifteen minutes earlier when they'd been going at each other like maniacs in the shower. Steam wasn't much protection from prying eyes.

Despite the size of The Gallows, they reached Lord's Death's office wing in record time. Kid's scalp crinkled in fear when he heard his father' shouts echoing down the hallway. The man rarely raised his voice, let alone yelled and it made Kid want to scoop Maka up and run back upstairs to the safety of his room. Something terrible must have occurred. World-devasting terrible.

"Stay here!" he told Maka, raising his own voice to be heard over that of a woman screaming in on the other side of the door.

"I can't stop her!" she cried, "Not this time. She knows! She _knows_! She's breaking the door down!"

Maka's pupils contracted to shocked pinpoints when she heard the plea for help. She shoved Kid out of her way and burst into Lord Death's office.

"Come through, come through!" he was shouting, looking at something on the other side of the eight-foot mirror near his desk. Whatever he saw through the purple shimmer of the portal was bad enough to make his face a mask of terror.

A woman fell through the frame and past Death's rigid body. She landed hard, but rolled through it, putting herself out of range of the pale, bloody arm that reached through after her.

" _Mama_!" Maka cried.

The woman on the floor lifted a battered face toward the open door and the horrified girl standing just inside of it.

"Aw, shit!" Kami Albarn muttered.

Behind her, another woman burst through the mirror, shrieking like a banshee. No words, just primal, gut-wrenching screaming that intensified when Lord Death caught her and dragged her to the carpet. He struggled to gain control of her, barely able to hold her in place without hurting her. In spite of the long hair that obscured most of her face, her wild eyes caught on Kid. She immediately gave up her pursuit of Kami and lunged for him, bloody fingers scrabbling in the air.

Behind her, in a strangled, shattered voice she'd never forget, Maka heard Kid say one word.

" _Maman_!"

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* * *

 **Replies!**

 **fashiongirl23:** I'm glad you're in the fandom and really grateful that you like the story so far!  
 **FurorNocturna:** Yep. Things blew up.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Huge hugs of thanks to the lovely readers who helped me decide that my plot twist *wasn't* the worst decision ever and gave me encouragement to continue. Individual responses and a PSA are at the end!

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 _Everything can change in an instant. And then there is only before and after._

 _\- Phyllis Reynolds Mayner_

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When Spirit saw Lord Death wrestling on the floor with Sophie, he understood why his boss' call had been so uncharacteristically hysterical. He was so stunned by the sight that he barely registered Stein and Marie barreling through a second portal Lord Death had hastily opened. He might have stood there indefinitely, had he not heard his daughter sobbing. He looked frantically around the room and was utterly petrified to see her kneeling beside his bleeding, broken, ex-wife.

"Mama!" Maka rasped through the sobs blocking her throat as she tried desperately to figure out where her mother was hurt. Spirit tumbled down next to the crumpled body of his child's mother.

"Kami? Kami! Can you hear me?" he shouted, adding to the deafening din.

The demented Lady Death hurled herself toward them, dragging her husband along for the ride. She bit his wrist, freed her upper body and reached desperately for Kami. One of Kami's arms was drawn up and obviously injured, but she flung the other out, nails digging into the rug as she pulled herself toward her attacker.

"Sophie, stop! Kid's watching you. Please...stop!" she begged, already knowing in her heart that her words weren't going to affect someone in the thrall of madness.

Her mother's blood covered the wild woman's grasping fingers and fury boiled through Maka.

"Stay away from her!" she snarled, leaping in front of Kami. Both of her parents protested wildly, and Spirit covered them both with his own body.

"Maka, no! Spirit, get the fuck off me, that hurts!" Kami cried, "Sophie. Oh my God!"

God finally took control of the situation, hands glowing as he resorted to Reaper magic to contain his wife. It disabled her body but not her voice, and her mad ranting bounced off the walls of the enormous room as she was carried back through the mirror opened into Stein's lab.

"Kid, come with me!" Death said sharply.

Kid didn't acknowledge his father's command. He was white as a sheet and still standing in the doorway where Maka had left him. Marie ran to his side and put her arm around him, whispering encouragingly as she led his shock-stiffened body across the office. He didn't spare his girlfriend or her injured mother a glance.

Maka didn't look at him, either. Her mother needed help, and that was all she could focus on. She and Spirit were both horrified to see tears in Kami's eyes. Kami never ever cried. Maka tried to stop her own tears from falling as she held on to her mother's good hand, begging out loud for her to be okay.

"Maka, you need to let go," Stein said, "Medical attention is what she needs right now. I'm going to take her to my lab, and Nygus is on her way there right now to meet us. Now let go...that's it. Let go."

Maka nodded and turned toward Spirit, holding on to him for dear life as Stein knelt beside Kami. His grey eyes were coldly professional as he looked over the damage that had been done to his friend and former classmate.

"Surgery," he said shortly. Kami didn't respond; she'd fainted clean away when Stein lifted her broken arm. He tucked it gently across her chest before lifting her and carrying her through the glowing mirror.

Spirit helped his daughter to her feet and embraced her tightly. She was shaking like a leaf and hugged him back without reservation; the way she had when she was little. He paused in the abruptly quiet room for a moment, stroking Maka's damp hair. He refrained from telling her things would be alright; they both knew that would be a lie. Instead, he reminded her how strong she was. Maka struggled to believe it as her father finally led her through the portal.

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* * *

 **RESPONSES!**

 **multyfangirl20:** I kept thinking about leaving her dead, but curiosity got the better of me. Now we'll see if curiosity kills this cat!

 **Guest:** Thank you so much for the comments and the compliments. I deeply appreciate the former and blush under the praise of the latter. I hope this story continues to keep you interested!

 **DJKatt:** Nobody saw that one coming. Even *I* didn't see this coming until I was most of the way finished with Life Lessons. And it's taken me, what, three years to be brave enough to actually write it!

 **fashiongirl23:** I am equally glad you're back in the fandom. SE needs more fandom love. And I really appreciate you reading and commenting!

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* * *

 **PSA**

From this point on, there will be discussion and representation of violence driven by "madness" or "insanity". Madness in the Soul Eater universe has been explained as an external influence. While some characters, notably Stein and Kid, may have DSM5-accurate illnesses, exposure to Madness pushes the characteristics of those illnesses to the extreme or introduces new symptoms altogether.

Sophie's mental and physical behaviors are driven by a witch's spell which has infected her soul with Madness. While this causes symptoms of schizophrenia (delusional or "bizarre" delusional thinking), Borderline Personality Disorder (impulsive behavior, acting without thought of consequences, unplanned violence) and symptoms of acute psychosis/psychotic break (1), Sophie's behaviors are in no way meant as accurate portrayals of mental illnesses that exist in our world. If anything, her symptoms are closer to those suffering from substance abuse issues. In the SE universe, Madness generally affects an infected person just like a drug, and it's important to keep this in mind. Actual persons with mental illness are no more likely to be violent than the average neurotypical person. (2)

Also, portrayals of "insanity" in SE are shown to be "curable". There is usually no magic cure for mental illness and it's important to emphasize that these are, indeed, illnesses. They may respond to medications (as do forms of diabetes) or may result in carefully managed but irrevocable lifestyles (like patients who have had extreme cardiac events or strokes).

Thank you for reading. This is a topic that is important to me personally and professionally and I would hate to be considered a participant in the innumerable media portrayals of mentally ill people as "violent crazies", a stereotype that continues to make mental illness something that is feared, misunderstood and hidden in our country.

(1) - As currently listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition: /

(2) - 17.9% of mentally ill patients without a substance use diagnosis were violent, which was equal to the rate of violence among non-mentally ill persons who did not abuse substances. (Buckley, P.F et al May, 2003. Treatment of the psychotic patient who is violent. Retrieved from URL)


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Thanks to everyone who's reading and extra love to the reviewers. Your comments and perceptive thoughts are really helping and giving more insight as I'm writing 3 Individual responses are at the end of the chapter, along with translations of Sophie's French cursing!  
_

Maka and Spirit wanted to stay with Kami, but Stein firmly shut a door in their faces and went back to helping Nygus prep their patient for surgery. Her father took a seat in the hall, but Maka couldn't rest. Now that her panic was subsiding, she realized just how acute Kid's was. And how much screaming was echoing from the room four doors down from her mother's. Shame rolled over her in a sickening wave; she'd totally abandoned her boyfriend during one of the worst moments of his life.

She moved cautiously toward Sophie's doorway and peeked inside. Lord Death was holding his hysterical wife, continuing to restrain her while he and Marie attempted to calm her. Kid stood motionless in the corner looking horribly blank and vulnerable as he hunched against the cold wall in his bathrobe. Maka immediately began to soothe her soul with his, and he finally acknowledged her presence with flat, lusterless eyes. As she was about to go to him, Lord Death spoke.

"Maka," he said in a strained, frail voice she had trouble believing was his, "Do you think you might be able to help us? Maybe your Grigori wavelength combined with Marie's healing one will do something for her. Relax her a little, at least."

He looked at the writhing tangle of blonde hair and Chanel couture in his arms, and Maka saw a tear roll down Death's cheek. A lump of emotion rose in her own throat as she stepped toward them. Giving Kid a quick glance she pulled her soul back from his; she was going to need complete concentration for her task. Physical touch strengthened combined healing and anti-madness forces so she slowly reached out to put her hand over Marie's on Sophie's shoulder. As she did, the light glinted off of her ring and caught Sophie's eye.

"That's mine! Where did you get that? It's MINE!"

Long fingers wrapped around Maka's wrist and yanked her forward so forcefully that her forehead slammed painfully into Lord Death's. A stream of angry French nearly deafened her as she arched back, trying to escape from the sharp nails digging into her skin. Nails stained with her mother's blood brought Maka's to the surface as they scrabbled over the platinum state ring on her right hand. The one Kid had given her to symbolize their relationship and her connection to his family. The one that had belonged to his dead mother.

Only Sophie wasn't so dead, and she definitely wanted her property back.

"Thief!" she shrieked, "Where did you get this? Where?"

"Kid gave it to me! We didn't know….I didn't mean to…." Maka babbled Marie tried to help her get free, but even together they were no match for a madness-fueled Reaper.

"You think you can take my place and my son? Espèce de sale putain de pute, oubliee de Dieu.!"1

There was a loud snap, but it took a moment for Maka realized that her finger had broken. Then the pain kicked in and with it came a rush of her famous temper.

"Let go of me, you crazy bitch!" she snarled, elbowing her attacker in the jaw and pulling her hand away.

" _Connasse_! _Salope_!"2

Sophie lunged again, knocking Marie off, and although he maintained his grip, Death's entire upper body jerked forward. Sophie knotted her fingers in Maka's hair and yanked, trying to get back within reach of her property. Maka stopped her opponent's momentum with her knee and then pivoted as much as she was able to. Even though it wasn't her dominant arm, practice had provided her with a pretty wicked left hook, and she drew back to deliver it. Before she could, Kid galvanized himself into action.

"Don't hurt her!" he cried, landing on the bed in a flurry of black silk. He wedged himself between his mother and his girlfriend and pushed them apart with all his might. Braced against her husband strike merely loosened Sophie's grip on Maka, who wasn't so lucky. The force of a blow delivered with Kid's unchecked strength drove the air out of her lungs, and she felt plaster give way beneath her skull when she hit the wall on the other side of the room. Sparks shot through her vision, which was rapidly tunneling down to blackness. All she could see was Kid.

He'd _hit_ her.

Pain radiated through Maka's head, throbbing in time with her broken finger.

He'd hit _her_.

He'd hit her, and he wasn't helping her. Wasn't even _looking_ at her. Instead of coming to Maka's side where he belonged, Kid was kneeling in front of his mother, grasping her hands and begging her to calm down. So worried about Sophie that he'd apparently failed to notice he'd cracked a wall with his girlfriend's head. Fresh fury cleared Maka's vision and lifted her to her feet.

"I'm going to hurt HER?" she yelled. Kid finally looked at her, but he still didn't move. Maka wrenched the ring off her broken finger, ignoring the jolt of agony that shot all the way up to her shoulder.

"Here, give it back to her. I sure as hell don't want it."

She threw the ring at him as hard as she could. It bounced off of Kid's cheek and landed on the floor, tinkling as it broke into its component pieces on the gray tile. He opened his mouth to speak, but Maka had already fled, strangling back a sob as she stormed into the hallway.

Kid tried to follow her, but Sophie wouldn't let go of his wrists. He felt her wavelength settle as she pulled him closer, and then her arms locked around him like an iron cage. Kid shuddered as her silky cheek rested against his forehead, and the smell of her perfume made his stomach churn.

"It's alright, mon doux bébé3," she murmured against his hair in a deranged sing-songy voice, "Maman is here now."

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 **Translations**

1 You cheap, goddamn fucking, godforsaken whore.

2 bitch. slut

3 My sweet baby

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 **Note:** Information about the ring, and a sample picture are available at Archive of Our Own under the same story and author names.

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 **Responses!**

 **DJKatt:** I'm really enjoying the writing, although this chapter was hard, because of the interaction between Kid and Maka. Thanks beyond words for letting me bend your ear and for helping me with my terror of OCs 3 I hope I can pull off a good storyline with Sophie, but can't decide how she's going to end up yet.

 **Guest:** I'm so glad that the mothers' appearances was interesting rather instead of being a horrible bore. Thank you so much!

 **multyfangirl20** **:** He thought so, too! I hope I can do justice to this trope, but it's making me nervous, lol!

 **Guest:** I'm sorry that the grammar police kept you from writing. I'd be happy to proofread if you ever decide to get back into it 3 I don't know whether to cure, calm down or kill Sophie; she's a difficult little maniac :)

 **REDEADED** : As always, your support gets me through the hard times in writing, and in life. 3 you, buddy! 


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Just a little transition chapter. Deepest thanks to the wonderful readers. For those lovely people who've left comments, there are individual responses at the end 3  
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 _"I'm feeling not just the physical pain, but all that I have lost, and it is profound and catastrophic and will leave a crater in me that nothing will ever fill._ _"_

 _\- Gayle Foreman, If I Stay_

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Maka stormed into the hall like a vengeful Valkyrie.

"Fucking Reapers. Fuck them. Fuck them!"

Alarmed, Spirit got up and followed her, finally catching up to her in the Steins' living room

"Honey, what happ-"

He tried to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, but his daughter whipped around out of his reach.

"You knew, didn't you? You knew where Mama was the whole time, and you never told me. You've let me wonder for years. Why didn't you tell me, Papa? WHY?"

Fury practically radiated from her and Spirit took a step back.

"Because your mother made me promise not to. It wasn't my secret to tell. And I probably don't have to explain that it was highly classified information. Only five of us knew about your mother's mission, knew that Sophie was still alive."

"And she left me for HER," Maka snapped, gesturing toward Sophie's room, "Left me so she could babysit that woman? Why would she do that?"

Spirit sank onto one of Marie's fluffy chintz chairs, looking defeated.

"I'm sure it was partly my fault. Maybe she wouldn't have taken the position if it hadn't been for the divorce."

"Well, I'm pretty sure she didn't just volunteer," Maka insisted, "I'm sure Lord Death asked her."

"He did, honey, but please don't blame him. And don't blame Kid, either."

"Why shouldn't I?" Maka demanded, "I don't care. He asked, and she went. And as for Kid, that crazy bitch attacked me, and he didn't even try to protect me. Look what she did to my finger!"

Maka held up her hand and Spirit inhaled sharply at the sight of the swollen ring finger. It was crooked and already turning black and blue.

"She hurt me, and then he did. I don't see him out here apologizing or asking if I'm okay. He picked her over me."

She'd been betrayed by almost everyone she knew, and that fact sent another shockwave of furious misery through Maka. She felt like one big ball of pain, and it had nothing to do with her broken bone.

"He didn't pick me," she said quietly, and fresh tears welled up in her eyes.

"I'm sure there's some misunderstanding," Spirit soothed, "It'll be okay, sweetheart. We'd better get that finger looked at, though. Nygus should be here by now. Let me help you find her."

He didn't understand at all. There was no misunderstanding; she'd been lied to by people she trusted. Hurt and abandoned by Kami and Kid. Betrayed by two of the three people she loved without reservation. And Spirit was not one of those people.

"I don't need you to help me. I'll handle it myself. Like I've been doing." she snapped, "Like I've been doing for years."

"Please calm down," Spirit begged, "I-"

Maka cut him off, "Can you call me when Mama is out of surgery or is that going to be a secret, too?"

"Of course I'll call you," Spirit said weakly. His daughter marched out, and he dropped his head into his hands, feeling emptier than he had in a long while. Since the battle on the moon, he'd been making some progress with his daughter. He'd not only lost that, but she was angrier with him than she'd ever been. This time, he realized, she might never forgive him.

His wife was temporarily calm, but Lord Death knew it wasn't going to last. He'd been forced to seal her off with the same spell he'd used on his son only a year before. Since she lacked the strength of a born Reaper, it knocked Sophie into limp unconsciousness. Kid was finally able to extricate himself from her grasp, and his father steered him into the chair next to the bed. He was concerned beyond measure that his son was almost as comatose as his mother, but he had no idea what to say to the boy yet. He was in shock himself, and fearful that his son's mental illness was going to flare in spite of the bit of Maka's Grigori soul he possessed. His anger was already off the charts. If he added insanity to that, well, he didn't even want to think about the result.

"I…," he stammered, "I'm going to…I'll get Liz."

It was horribly inadequate, and he knew it. Not that it mattered anyway, because Kid's wavelength was utterly flat, and he didn't acknowledge that he'd been spoken to. With a worried glance, Death left his shattered family to search out Marie before he returned to his office. He found her in the medical supply room, fussing over Maka while Nygus set the girl's finger. Maka didn't even flinch when the bone was popped back into place, remaining silently burrowed against Marie while her injury was splinted and taped. She was almost as bad off as Kid, and Death added Soul to his list of things to fetch. Marie threw him a questioning glance, and nodded in understanding when he gestured toward Sophie's room and pantomimed that he was leaving, but would be back. He knew that Marie was probably the best person to help Kid and Maka until their partners arrived. God knew, with utter certainty, that he was no good to either of them.

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 **RESPONSES!**

 **Guest** \- I wouldn't want to disappoint a puppy! 3


	10. Chapter 10

Time had ceased to have meaning and it seemed like Kid had been sitting alone beside his mother's bed for an eon when Liz bustled in with a tote bag and a worried expression. Her hair was tangled and her eyes were a little glassy, but Kid was in no shape to notice.

"Oh my God. I'm sorry it took me so long to get here. My, uh, my phone was off. Are you okay? Kid? Look at me." alarmed by his lack of response, Liz snapped her fingers in front of the Reaper's face, " _Look at me_!"

Kid finally tipped his head toward her, acknowledging her not because he wanted to, but because she demanded it.

"I brought you some clothes," she said, kneeling down next to him, and placing the bag at his bare feet like an offering, "I can't imagine what you're going through right now, but it's gotta be even harder without pants."

"Thank you," he whispered. Speaking ruptured the dam he'd rigged to contain his emotions and they flooded over him, waiting for him to drown.

"I don't know what to do," he gasped, wrapping his arms around his chest protectively in an attempt to keep his panicking heart from bursting out of it, "I don't know what to do,"

He began to rock rhythmically, cranking Liz' worry up to eleven. He was showing all the signs of one of his major breakdowns; the kind he hadn't had since Maka had healed him. Liz did _not_ want to see the end result of what promised to be a record-breaking freakout and knew she had to distract him. To get his focus redirected, even if it was toward her. This wasn't going to be pleasant. She pulled up a chair and put her hand on his shoulder.

"I knew," she said quietly. She bowed her head but felt his eyes snap into focus and bore right through the messy curtain of hair that hid her face from him.

"Knew what?" he demanded shakily "What do you mean?"

Liz risked a look at him, "That she was alive," she confessed, nodding toward Sophie, "You dad told me years ago, kind of by accident. Right after we came to live with you."

"What? All this time and _neither_ of you told me?" He clamped on to her upper arm with frightening strength.

"Your Dad explained things so that I'd understand your...condition. What you were dealing with and why you needed to be...helped. And, uh, I think I ended up being the person he could talk to about it."

Frustration shook Kid, and his grip tightened, " _You_ were the person he could talk to about it? What about me? She was my mother! He saw what I was going through. Why didn't he talk to _me_?"

Liz started to reply, but he cut her off, "Never mind. I'm sure he has some half-assed reason that doesn't make sense to anybody but him. But why wouldn't you tell me, Liz? _Why would you do this to me_?"

Kid abruptly let go of her and slumped forward, bracing his elbows on his knees to support himself.

"I...I promised. I wanted to talk to you about it so many times, but I swore I wouldn't." Liz stammered, "Please try to understand Kid. I didn't want to lie to you, but I didn't want to hurt you more, either."

"It's not your fault," he muttered at the floor, "You were just following _orders_. How could Dad lie all these years, though? How could he take her away from me? How could he look me in the face and tell me she was dead?"

"It wasn't a lie," Liz murmured, stroking his back, "Not really. That's not your mom anymore, Kid. Her body is alive, but she's not the same person. The mom you grew up with would never have tried to hurt you. But she's sick now, and it made her try to kill you once. Do you blame your dad for not giving her a chance to do it again?"

"I don't know what to think anymore!" Kid cried, "Does everybody know but me? Have you _all_ been keeping this a secret?"

"No," Liz assured him, "I think your dad only told a few people besides me. Mr. Albarn, Sid and Professor Stein. Maka's mom obviously. Maybe Mrs. Hurst knows, but I don't think the rest of the staff at the house do. And we didn't tell Patty or anybody at school. I'm sorry Kid. I really am. And I won't ever keep anything from you again, no matter what. Nothing but the truth from here on out."

She leaned over to hug him and a bright glimmer on the tile floor caught her eye. She hunched forward to get a better look and got a horrible, crawly shock when she realized what was twinkling at her. Sliding out of her chair and onto all fours, she fished the platinum skull ring out of the corner. To her knowledge, it had never left Maka's finger before. She didn't even take it off for practice or gym class, or to shower afterward, so what was it doing on the floor like a discarded gum wrapper? Liz' already sizeable sense of foreboding had a sudden growth spurt.

"Kid, why is this down here?" she asked quietly. The ring's component parts had loosened and they jingled faintly as she spread her palm beneath his drooping head.

"What happened? Where is Maka?"

Kid paused, searching, and despair deepened its clutches on him when he couldn't feel her through their bond. It got even worse when he realized he hadn't even noticed.

"I...I don't know." he whispered, raising panicked eyes to Liz' bloodshot ones, "Maman went wild when she saw Maka wearing this and grabbed her. I was so afraid Maka was going to get hurt. I pushed her to get her away, but I didn't watch myself...how much strength I was using. I knocked her right off the bed and she hit her head on the wall."

Liz inhaled sharply and Kid felt the sting of tears, "She threw this at me and left. She left, and I didn't go after her and now she's closed herself off. Maybe I've lost her, too. I don't know what I'd do without her. I don't know what to do!"

Kid dug his fingernails into his scalp. The pain pulled his focus outward and was much easier to deal with than the anguish inside of his head and heart. Liz reached out tentatively to stop his scratching like she had so many times in the past seven years. For the first time, she was afraid he'd slap her away. To forestall that, she dropped the ring into his hand and closed his fingers around it.

"What you need to do right now is figure out how to get this back on her finger," she said firmly, "We'll figure the rest out later. And we'll do it together. I know you probably feel like it, but you're not alone. I'm with you, and so is Patty and everyone else. We're going to get through this somehow."

She expected an angry, hopeless rebuttal, but Kid flung himself into her arms and huddled there, shivering in his thin robe and begging her to tell him how to make it better. Liz kissed the top of his head, glad he couldn't see the doubt clouding her face. She didn't say a word about things getting better. After all, she'd just promised never to lie to him again.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Thanks **so** much to everyone's who's reading - I'm so grateful to you all! Extra thanks go out to BlueDragonIsAwesome and ToHellAndBack777 for their wonderful insights and fun talks!

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"Where the _hell_ have you been?"

Soul stopped in his tracks, startled by the hysteria-tinged animosity in his partner's voice. Her frown was so furious that he took an involuntary step back toward the swinging door that separated the Steins' living space from the lab.

"I...uh…well..."

Under normal circumstances, her usually-calm partner's stammering confusion would have raised Maka's suspicions. That he looked like a wreck wouldn't have helped. Luckily for Soul, the circumstances were decidedly not normal. He still approached the bench outside of Stein's surgery warily, concentrating on walking a straight line.

"We've been looking for you!" Maka snapped, "While you've been goofing around at that concert my entire life went to shit."

The anger suddenly drained from her, and she wilted, white-faced and exhausted. Soul shot Spirit a worried glance, but Maka's father wasn't any help. In fact, he looked worse than she did. Taking a seat between the two, Soul slid his arm around his partner, and she turned her face into his shoulder. She didn't even notice the smell of the alcohol that was making it so hard for Soul to concentrate.

"Lord Death gave me the basics," he said, "What can I do?"

"Nothing," Maka muttered, "Dr. Stein's in there right now with some other doctors that showed up, but I don't know what's going on," Her voice rose in anguish, and she clutched the back of his wrinkled shirt, "I don't even know who they are. Soul, what am I gonna do if my mama dies?"

"She's not going to. At least not today," Dr. Stein promised, popping through the surgery door as if he'd been waiting for an appropriately dramatic entrance cue. Knowing Stein, that was entirely possible. Spirit jumped up, and Maka followed, letting go of Soul so abruptly that she almost knocked him over.

"She's not in critical condition," Stein said, eliciting relieved sighs from all three of his listeners.

"Thank god. Oh, thank god," Spirit said in a terrible, shaky voice. Relief took the strength from his legs, and he dropped onto the bench like a marionette whose strings had snapped.

"I want to see her. Can I go in?" Maka asked.

Stein remembered her asking the same question of him years ago after Soul nearly died trying to protect her. She was even more upset now than she had been then and Stein's heart went out to his favorite student. Her soul was in terrible condition. Its wavelength completely unstable, and for some reason, Maka was repressing the Reaper bond inside it as though her continued existence depended on it. She needed some time and space to calm down and get her head together. Sitting in a hospital staring at her battered mother wasn't going to make that happen.

"She's sedated right now. You can see her tomorrow," Stein promised, patting her head gently, "I want you to go and get some rest too, okay?"

"No! I want to stay here. What if she wakes up and wonders where I am? What if she needs me?"

"She won't," Stein said firmly, "She'll be out for a long time, and if she needs anything, it'll be medical care that you can't give her. Soul, can you take her home?"

Soul nodded, "Yeah. Sitting here all night won't do you or your mom any good, Maka. You want to be in decent shape when you see her tomorrow, don't you? If she saw you right now, she'd be worried as hell. You're totally freaked out, and you look awful."

"You aren't going to win any beauty prizes yourself," Maka replied, but there wasn't much bite to her words. Soul and Doctor Stein were right; she had to pull herself together. She'd been crying on and off for hours, and her finger and head were throbbing like a bitch. She wasn't even wearing shoes for god's sake. She couldn't let her mother see her like this.

"Thank you for helping her, Professor Stein," she said, and embraced her teacher, taking some comfort in the smell of cigarette smoke that always clung to him. Not usually a scent she liked, but right now any familiar constant was a blessing.

"Yeah, thank you," Spirit echoed as he slumped in a combination of relief and defeat. Maka studied him, thinking hard. Her father was Lord Death's personal weapon; his right hand. He'd only been following the orders given to him by Lord Death and Kami, and in all fairness, Maka didn't think she'd be able to disobey both of them at the same time either. In spite of the things he'd done to break up his marriage, Spirit still loved his ex-wife, and his distress at the thought of losing her was something Maka could understand. Soul was obviously thinking along the same lines, and he nudged her shoulder with his, pushing her toward her father.

"Papa…."

She didn't know what to say next. Spirit grabbed the hesitant hand she placed on his shoulder and spoke instead.

"Don't worry, sweetie, Mama will be fine. I promise. I'm so sorry you had to find out like this. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you. I know that can't help the way you feel right now, but I'm so, so sorry."

Fresh tears stung Maka's eyes, and for the second time that night she willingly embraced her father. Cheating asshole or not, she knew he'd do anything for her, and she understood what it must have cost him to deceive her for so long. She couldn't be angry at him for doing his job; she wasn't that unfair.

Her hug and the forgiveness that went with it were lifelines to Spirit's wounded heart and soul. He told her he loved her and promised to stay with Kami and call Maka the minute her mother was ready to see her. Then he gently turned her toward her partner and repeated Stein's order for home and rest.

"Come on," Soul said, taking her hand.

Maka swiped at her eyes and asked Stein if she could use his living room mirror to open up a portal to her apartment.

"No need," he replied, "Lord Death has a car waiting outside for you. The driver will take you home. You don't have enough experience with that Reaper power yet. Using it when you're this upset could have unpredictable outcomes.

"Besides," he said knowingly, "it doesn't seem like you want to use it right now anyway."

Soul took it as a bad sign that Maka didn't even argue. She had to be more fucked up than he'd thought if she'd take a slam like that on her abilities without a word of protest. She followed him mutely toward the door at the opposite end of the hall, pausing when they got halfway.

"I...I should check on Kid," she said flatly. She felt awful about the scene they'd had earlier. Now that her anger had cooled, she was able to understand that no matter how upset she was, Kid had to feel a thousand times worse. She knew he hadn't meant to hurt her and she couldn't leave him alone at a time like this. They were each other' solace. She'd bring him back to the apartment for the night; the Gallows was too full of Sophie and the trauma her departure had inflicted on him. They'd have tea and talk things out. Later they'd curl up together in her bed. It was a tight fit, but spooning so close that she could feel his heartbeat against her back was exactly what she needed. They'd be okay. As long as they had each other, they'd always be okay. Leaving Soul in the hall, she peeked around Sophie's doorway hesitantly, afraid of setting her off again.

She needn't have worried. There was a spell so strong surrounding Kid's mother that Maka's fingertips itched from the residual magic in the room. Sophie lay quietly, looking ethereal in her trance. Kid sat with Liz' arm around him, holding one of his mother's limp fingers. He was carefully cleaning the blood from beneath her nail, and Liz was telling him that he didn't need to.

"Somebody else can do that, Kid,"

"I have to do _something_ ," Kid told her, clutching Sophie's hand, "I'm terrified that she won't stay with me. What'll I do if she won't, Liz? I don't care what happens as long as she doesn't leave me. She's the only thing that really matters to me now."

Every painful thing she'd experienced combined had nothing on what his words did to Maka. The entire world wobbled, or maybe it was just her knees. She didn't matter anymore? _They_ didn't matter anymore? One of the two things she'd thought she could always count on was gone, ripped away from her so suddenly that her heart physically hurt. Not only hurt, _betrayed_. When Maka felt hurt, she got angry, but betrayal made her furious.

She burst through the door, scaring Liz and Kid out of their wits when she screamed, "Fine!" at the top of her lungs. She seared Kid with a blazing glare that haunted him for the rest of his life, and then she was gone. Maybe for good.


	12. Chapter 12

" _When you learn that a truth is a lie, anger follows_ "

~ _Grace Slick_

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Sophie had always referred to the morning room as her _boudoir_ ; her hideaway when she needed time away from her bustling official headquarters. Her husband jokingly referred to it with its' literal translation, the Sulking Room. It cracked him up because Sophie never sulked. Half brought the house down when she lost her temper, yes, but never _sulked_.

And of all the places, his father had chosen to put his mother _here_ when he carried her unconscious body home from Stein's lab. Kid _hated_ the boudoir, uncomfortably reminded of all the good times he'd spent in it as a child and how, at the age of ten, he'd nearly died in it. The bed Sophie now lay on had been installed in the corner after Kid outgrew his bassinet. He'd napped there in the afternoons as a toddler, lulled into sleep by the rustle of his mother's papers, and the click of her keyboard. The soft murmur of her voice solving household and international tangles had been his favorite lullaby. After her son was born, everyone with news of failure or woe to impart quickly learned to call it in during naptimes, when Lady Death refused to raise her voice.

At the end, after a finely and malevolently crafted bit of magic had was driven into her soul; when she was losing her firm and loving grip on the world, Sophie had spent most of her time in the boudoir. She'd kept Kid with her as much as possible, struggling against her madness and barely able to let him out of her sight. Their final, blood-spattered moments had been spent here.

Marie stood at the foot of Sophie's bed, looking tenderly at her friend.

"She looks exactly the same," she brushed the slight bulge of her stomach, freshly reminded of the ten pounds of post-baby weight that stubbornly refused to go away. Kid didn't respond, but he looked at her, which was some progress. He'd been hovering awkwardly near the desk since they'd brought Sophie back to The Gallows, staring silently at the rug in the seating area and looking tragic. Marie continued, encouraged by the tiny response.

"She always seemed young, no matter what decade she was living in. I think that was the secret to her happiness; she always lived in the moment. Never got stuck in one particular time. Kami, Nygus and I used to have the best times with her when we were younger. We were in our late teens and early twenties, just starting out, but she seemed like one of us."

Kid digested her words for a moment before saying, "She doesn't seem like anybody now."

Marie came over and hugged him tightly, reminding him of the way she'd comforted him after his mother had...well after he'd _thought_ she'd died.

"Try to remember how much she loved you, okay? She would never have hurt you if she'd been in her right mind. Blame the spell that witch put on her, but don't blame her. Even when things went so wrong in the end, she was trying to protect you."

"I know."

Kid's sight was inexorably drawn back to the white carpet in the seating area. The elegant tiptoes of Beaux Arts sofas and Louis XVI chairs had once rested on a blue and gold Aubusson; a priceless rug that was destroyed when his mother had tried to kill him on it. A psychotic break had convinced her that she could keep her son's soul safe by tearing it out of his body and hiding it in a little blue enameled box she'd had made especially for the purpose. Kid never understood why his father had replaced the rug at all. It wasn't like the room was in use; it had been locked up for seven years, and only the two Reapers knew where the key was. Some sentimental whim, maybe. Or perhaps it was there to hide the floor beneath it. Kid had always been afraid to look in case he saw his own blood filling the cracks in the parquet. It would have been impossible to get the sticky red out, no matter how hard the wood was scrubbed. By now it would have turned black…..

Suddenly all the air disappeared, and Kid struggled to breathe. The walls were caving in on him; spinning at the same time. He had to get out; get away from the spot where he'd almost lost his life and from the woman who'd tried to take it. The woman he'd adored and been betrayed by.

"I...I need….to...pardon me, Miss Marie, please excuse me!" he croaked, barely able to remember his manners before fleeing into the safety of the hall. There didn't seem to be much more air in it, but perhaps that was a good thing. Because the more he could breathe the angrier he was getting. Which made sense; oxygen fed fire, and Kid was burning up. Terror had turned, as it easily does, to pure fury. It was strong enough to propel Kid halfway into his Reaper aspect, and smoky, half-formed robes trailed behind him as he marched down the hall and through the foyer toward his father's study. The housekeeper, who had known him since birth, was shocked by the malevolent-looking specter who appeared as she was opening the front door to admit Sid Barrett. Sid took one look and reached past her, firmly closing them both behind the etched glass doors that separated the entry vestibule from the foyer. He wasn't going to let the distraught Mrs. Hurst get in the path of a Reaper on the warpath, and he didn't plan to mess with one, either. He had _never_ been that kind of guy.

Lord Death was on the phone when his office doors exploded inward. They bounced off the paneling and the crack of walnut against walnut shook the vast space all the way up to the balcony, where Death's personal library resided. Several volumes tumbled down, cracking their spines or expelling the dust of centuries when they landed on the floor two stories below.

"I'll call you back," he said, hastily ending his phone call.

"That was Mireille," he said conversationally as if nothing unusual had happened. As if his son weren't standing before him bursting with vicious energy, "She was left behind in Paris, and I didn't want her to worry."

"Yes, we wouldn't want Maman's _maid_ to fret," The words dripped with acid. Now Kid had another name to add to the list of people who'd known the secret of his mother's disappearance and had willingly deceived him.

"Kid…" Death's tone was stern, but there was a trace of fear in his voice. Not fear for his son, but fear _of_ him. The cloud of deadly Reaper magic he'd been practicing at compiling was growing dense around him, and it prompted Lord Death to wonder if he was still capable of besting the boy in a contest of sheer power. He was so very unsure that for the first time he pressed a certain button hidden under his top desk drawer. It's signal alerted Spirit to evacuate and seal the Academy administrative center, archives and command posts. Sid's team went on active standby. Mrs. Hurst was notified to get the staff to the safe rooms, and Liz received a message to get Patty and follow them. The mirrors along the wall near his desk turned black as their master sealed off his various other dimensions, including the Death Room.

"You're afraid of me?" Kid's laugh was fierce and humorless, "And you have a _protocol_ for it?"

"Of course I'm afraid," his father replied evenly, "Have you seen yourself?"

Faint black lines were starting to crawl over Kid's lower lip, and his eyes were glowing like skull-shaped coals. He'd encased himself in enough energy to take down Lord Death's most private, protected space, and half the house along with it.

"There's no telling what you might do if you lose control. We can't risk the safety of the people here and the information we're privy to falling into the hands of a madman."

"Scared that I might go mad?" his son snapped, "You mean like I've been trying to avoid doing for the past _since I was ten_? And mostly alone, while you watched from the sidelines? I'm just a necessary evil to you, aren't I? You need an heir, but you were never too worried about actually raising one!"

Death opened his mouth to explain his motivations, but Kid cut him off.

"Don't say anything. You've gotten good at not telling me anything, so why start now? Anyway, you can't honestly think I'll believe anything you say, do you? I am sick of you lying to me and hiding things from me. All I know is that most of my life has been a lie. A lie that you made so many people a part of. One that made Maka lose _her_ mother so I could lose _mine_."

Death finally stood. He braced his hands on his desk and leaned over it toward his dangerously hurt and furious child.

"Kid, I tried to contain your mother with doctors and nursemaids for a year. Nothing worked. She's not a strong Reaper, but she's a hell of a lot stronger than most human beings. I couldn't risk letting her near you again, but I was not….am not, will _never_ be, capable of destroying my wife."

"But you let me assume you were." Kid retorted, grabbing onto the back of a Chinese Chippendale chair to steady himself, "Let me grow up wondering if you might kill me if I got too crazy. You _told_ me you killed her."

"I did not," Lord Death shook his head vehemently, "I never said that to you once."

"You said she was gone, or that she'd left us. Fuck that. You know as well as I do that you meant them to sound like euphemisms for death."

The chair splintered in Kid's grip and Death winced as the wreckage was hurled into a corner and shattered the glass in a nearby étagère. A moment later its mate sailed across the vast room, taking out everything in its path before landing precariously close to the fireplace. Death hurried to explain, trying to calm the storm before it broke completely and destroyed them both.

"I needed you to think it could never happen again. Needed you to feel like you were safe. If you knew your mother was alive, you wouldn't have had that security, and we both know what too much fear can do to a person." Death pointed upward, indicating the dark moon where his oldest son was imprisoned; a threat to the entire world in his fear-fueled madness.

"I had to get her out of Death City, and Mrs. Albarn _wanted_ to go. She was strong enough to contain your mother, and they were friends. We told her she'd killed you. It was the only way we could keep her away, and it worked….until Maman found out you were still alive."

The fight drained out of Kid as suddenly as it had ignited.

"I wish she _had_ died." he said bitterly, "She ruined my life. And you finished it off. As far as I'm concerned both of you can go to hell."

He turned his back on his father and fled, hurling one of the broken doors out of his way to facilitate his escape. More glass shattered as frames and knickknacks broke its fall. Death fell back into his chair and dropped his head onto the desk, protectively encircling it with his arms. Time seemed to stop, and it didn't start again until Liz appeared.

"I got the evacuation message, but then I saw Kid storm out of here like a maniac and….whoa."

She surveyed the devastated office with wide eyes.

"I take it he's not handling the news well," she said finally. When she didn't get a response, she strode over to the desk and smacked the wood near Death's head,

"Okay, talk to me! What the hell happened?"

Death had to expend some effort to raise his head, and when he did, Liz saw the telltale mark of tears staining the leather blotter.

"I've already been screamed at today by Spirit, Kid, and my wife, who I haven't laid eyes on for seven years. If you're going to yell at me too, can you please take a number? And maybe put it off until tomorrow?"

"I'm not gonna yell at you," she said, "I won't even say 'I told you so.'"

"You just did."

"Hm. Guess I did, didn't I? Come on over here and sit down." Liz brushed the shards of wood and glass off of a sofa and directed him onto it before picking her way over to the liquor cabinet. She poured a couple of stiff drinks into heavy bottomed crystal tumblers. The same brand of Scotch she'd drunk unbidden on her first visit to this office as a scared, angry, fifteen-year-old street urchin. The same glasses that he'd shocked her by using to serve her purloined liquor while he laid down the laws of her new existence as his son's personal weapon. One of them had been no drinking, but this was a rules-were-meant-to-be-broken kind of day.

"Here," she said, handing him one of the drinks, "You need this. And I'm having one too, whether you like it or not."

"It's the least of my worries tonight," he replied. In spite of his dead eyes, he didn't forgo the customary clink of his glass against hers.

"Besides," he said after taking a sip, "Unless I'm wrong this isn't your first one of the evening."

Liz grinned at him ruefully, "No matter how fucked up you get, you're never too fucked up to bust me."

He smiled wanly at her, "And I never will be. Remember that."

It was his way of assuring her that she and Patty would always have a place in his home and his life, which frightened Liz because it meant that Kid might not. Just the thought of having to choose between them made her lungs constrict.

"So, what now,?" she asked, staring into her glass while running her finger around the edge.

"I don't know," Death sounded lost, "I need to talk to Kami and find out what set Sophie off. I mean...obviously she found out Kid is alive, but I don't know how. I have to figure out what to do with her. And with Kid. I'm afraid I've lost him, Liz."

His voice broke, and he took momentary refuge in his drink. The liquor briefly warmed his throat and stomach but didn't make a dent in the ice around his heart.

"You need to wait until he calms down before you talk to him again," Liz said, "He took off, I'm assuming to see Maka, because that's all fucked up, too. Don't worry; he didn't drive. As soon as I got the red alert message, I got Patty out of the house and grabbed all the car keys on my way."

Lord Death patted her hand and thanked her gratefully. She'd thought even further ahead than he had, one more proof that she'd acted more as a parent to his son than he often had. Liz scooted over and leaned her head on his shoulder.

"He might half-kill himself on that skateboard, but at least he won't run anybody over. When he comes back, I'll talk to him too." she propped her feet up on the coffee table and had another long pull of Scotch, "But, dude, you gotta stop trying to protect him. You need to be honest with him from now on, and you really have to make sure that he's prepared to be the next LD. I don't think you understand how freaked out he is by the thought that he might have to figure all this," she gestured at the trashed office, "out on his own someday."

A phone rang, and they both instinctively grabbed their pockets. It was Death's, and Spirit was on the other side. Death nodded, and the mirrors flickered back on. His secretary was in one of them, informing them that a pre-Kishin was running amok in Iowa and that the US Department of Defense was holding on line one regarding the explosion out in the desert earlier in the evening. She also needed to reschedule the teleconference he was supposed to have had at 8 pm on the "North Korea issue."

In another mirror, Stein appeared, asking to see him as soon as possible, and Sid rang in to make sure it was okay to stand down and get things running again. Liz listened in, sad that her adoptive father had to continue dealing with the weight of the world's problems when his personal ones were already crushing him.

"What you're going through is awful," she said when they were alone again. She knew she needed to leave, that he had to go back to his work, but she couldn't go without doing _something_ encouraging.

"But you'll be able to fix things. Kid does love you, you know. _All_ your kids do." she leaned over and kissed his cheek.

He hugged her, sounding pitifully grateful when telling her that he didn't know what he would have done without her for the last five years. That she was a godsend.

"Nah," Liz forced a smile as she drained her glass and set it on the coffee table, "I'm one of the Brooklyn Devils, remember? I'm pretty sure the other guy sent me."


	13. Chapter 13

Bed spins and angst are not a good combination, and Soul was nursing a bad case of both when the frantic knocking started. Only one person was likely to be showing up at this time of this particular night, and Soul answered the front door with a sense of dread. The feeling intensified when he confirmed that Kid was, indeed, on the other side. He looked worse than Soul felt, which was really saying something.

"Please forgive me for coming here so late, but may I...can I come in?" Kid was out of breath, his shirt was untucked, and he looked than a little crazy around the eyes.

Soul pinched the bridge of his nose to ease the pain in his head,

"Sure. Why not?" he said resignedly, "Not like I can stop you anyway."

"Maka isn't answering my calls." Kid slunk past Soul into the apartment, where he stood awkwardly in the hallway, "She's blocking our bond, and she has a blanket or something over her mirror."

"She doesn't want to see you, in case you couldn't figure that out," Soul said, "She's pretty pissed off. We both know it's better to leave her alone when she's like this. Why don't you go home and talk to her in the morning? You could probably use some time out, too. Saying you had a shitty day is the understatement of the century."

"I have to speak to her." Kid insisted, his thin veneer of civility visibly cracking, "I...I need to. I need her!"

"It's your funeral, man," Soul was too wiped out to argue. And a little scared, too. Kid looked more dangerous than Soul had ever seen him. He'd seen his friend in the throes of mental breakdowns and in full-bore Reaper rage mode. Right now he seemed to be combining the two. Maka was far from stable herself, and in the interest of not being dragged into what was sure to be a brawl of epic proportions, Soul made his first good decision of the night and retreated to his room.

Kid knocked lightly on Maka's door.

"Maka," he said softly, "May I come in?"

"No."

She sounded hard and miserable, the way she did when she was trying not to cry. While he couldn't feel her soul, Kid could still see it, and the sight made him sick. Normally Maka shone like the bravest and brightest of stars. Now her soul was dark and deflated, a sad, wrinkled little thing like ones he'd reaped from places where all hope had been lost.

"Please," he entreated, "I'd like to speak to you. And not through this door." He pressed his cheek against the wood, grateful for the cool surface against his hot skin but wishing it was Maka's soothing hand instead.

"I said no!"

Her voice was sharper now; its edge honed by pain. In his panic, he'd hurt her and scared her, and Kid thought he might die of shame. He needed to make this right.

"We need to discuss this. I'm so incredibly sorry for hurting you earlier. I didn't do it on purpose. I swear to you it was an accident."

A pillow whumped against the wall on Maka's side, "I know that you idiot! I'm just...not ready to talk. I'm too mad, and I'll say things I don't mean. I'll let you know when I'm ready to see you. Go home. That's where you want to be anyway."

It was the last place Kid wanted to be. What he wanted, all he wanted, was to be here, with her, and she wouldn't even speak to him. He felt his frayed nerves starting to burn again.

"Damn it, Maka! " Kid slammed his palm against the door, "If you're not mad about me knocking you into a goddamn wall, then why are you mad? It's not fair to blame me for what's going on here when I don't even know what I did."

"I sure as hell DO blame you!" She snarled. Something hard hit the door, and the wood vibrated against Kid's face. Knowing Maka, it was probably a book. Bartlett's Quotations or one of the other hefty missiles she kept near her bed. Even with their bond closed off, Kid knew she'd prefer to be aiming at his head.

"For WHAT?" he hollered back, rattling the doorknob, "Your mother? Mine? And what was that last thing all about? You scream "fine!" at me, take off obviously mad as hell, and now you won't even tell you what you meant? You're not making any bloody sense!"

"I said I don't want to talk about it right now. I'm upset, and I'm not thinking straight, so just go away!" she shrieked hysterically.

"You're upset? How the fuck do you think I feel?" Kid snapped, gripping the doorknob until his knuckles turned white. The metal heated beneath his sparking fingers and began to fold in on itself.

The downstairs neighbors thumped on their ceiling and loudly asked if Kid and Maka knew what time it was and if they could please shut the hell up.

"Apparently it's not my job to care how you feel anymore, so why are you here, anyway?" Maka screamed, ignoring the interruption, "Just to say sorry for cracking a wall with my head? Is that all? Fine, you apologized. You're forgiven."

Emotional devastation had loosened the sharp side of her tongue, and now her temper set it free.

"And you know what? I don't actually give a shit how you feel right now. Why don't you go tell your fucking maman about your problems since she's all you care about?"

Her words were designed to hurt, and they did. Kid had pulled certainty out from under her feet like a rug, and she wanted to get him back. Coming in second-best with him at the clinic when he was everything to her unleashed a violence Maka thought she'd conquered ages ago. She further relieved her feelings by throwing a framed photo across the room. The glass made a satisfying smash when it hit the wall and crashed to the floor. The pieces rattled on the tile as the neighbors, now seriously pissed off, banged energetically on their ceiling with a broom and threatened to call the police.

"What are you talking about? Don't do this to me right now. Not now. Not you." Kid yelled. All he'd wanted was comfort from the one person he could still trust. To know he was loved. To feel her arms around him and find the strength he needed to cope with the truths the night had so brutally delivered. Now he'd had that taken away from him too, and it was more than he could bear.

The silence from Maka was deafening, and Kid swore he could feel his heart cracking in two.

"Fine! Stay in there and be as obtuse and as pouty as you want. You want me to go away, I'm gone," he roared through his pain, "Nice to know I can depend on you when the chips are down. Thanks for NOTHING!"

"All right you guys, knock it off!"

Kid turned to see Soul behind him looking cross and judgey.

"We seriously do NOT need the cops here on top of all the other shit that's gone down tonight." the scythe said as he tucked his phone into the pocket of his plaid lounge pants. The screen glowed through the flannel for a moment and then winked out. Kid wondered who he'd been talking to.

Maka finally broke radio silence, "Stay out of this, Soul!"

"Then stop throwing shit!" her partner replied.

"Don't tell me what to do!"

Soul ignored her and held Kid's flaming gaze, right arm slightly extended in preparation to form a blade.

"You good, dude?" he asked in a voice carefully positioned between concern and wariness.

Kid finally noticed the smell of charred flesh, burned wood and hot metal that scented a hallway partially obscured with the cloudy skulls of his death magic. He took a deep, shaky breath and tried to calm himself.

"I'm, uh, yeah, I'm good," he muttered. Maka's doorknob chose that moment to break free of its melted mounting and clatter to the floor in a twisted, red-hot pretzel. The boys looked down at it and then back at each other

"You sure about that?" Soul relaxed his arm, but not his scrutiny. The fire in Kid's eyes and those creepy-ass robes had retreated to wherever they went when their owner wasn't using them, but the Reaper was obviously far from okay. He was still crazy and tortured, and now mortification was adding itself to the mix.

"I'm...I'm fine." Kid insisted, retreating into the living room, "I apologize for my poor behavior. Someone will be over to repair the damages tomorrow."

"I'm not worried about the knob, dumbass," Soul snorted, "I'm worried about you guys. You never go off on each other."

"First time for everything," Kid replied wanly, "And, in this case, I believe it might also be the last."

He looked sadly around the cozy apartment for what might be the final time, etching its memories of friendship and love into his mind before silently taking his leave.

Later, Kid wouldn't remember leaving the apartment, only his arrival in the cold, shadowy street. Sheer force of habit forced his gaze up to Maka's window. Whenever he left her place, she'd run to it and blow him a kiss when he reached the street. He'd blow one back, or he'd summon Beelzebub and float lazily up to return it to her in person.

Maka was in her window, but it was firmly closed and her back was turned. And she certainly wasn't going to be sending any kisses his way. Instead of reaching out to him, she was rolled up with her face against her knees, and although he was five floors below her, Kid could tell she was trying hard not to cry. Maka always collapsed inward when she got overly emotional, trying to hide what she saw as shameful weakness.

Kid, however, had always cried easily and wasn't surprised when Maka and the building framing her swam into watery abstraction. He ran his sleeve roughly over the tears, trying to cut them off the way he'd been cut off. The sudden loss of his soul bond with Maka made him feel wretchedly hollow and alone. Novels and poetry overflowed with the concept of heartbreak and Kid had always written it off as hyperbole, but now he knew better. Actual pain radiated from his chest and it hurt worse than his burnt hand. That would heal shortly, but he'd never feel better about the night's emotional wounds. A memory of Maka, bruised and battered but with fierce earnestness in her green eyes, rose to torment him further.

There will always be a next time for us. Always, no matter what happens. Forever, remember?

The thought that their "forever" might have just ended at one year, two months and eleven days hit him like a sharp blow to the head. It knocked him to the curb, where he sat with his face in his hands. For the first time in a long while, Kid was heedless of his position. He didn't give a damn that a random passerby might see the son of Death with his feet in the gutter and tears dripping between his trembling fingers. The fear that Maka's promise was a lie, like almost everything else in his life was turning out to be, was all-consuming.

His phone rang, and he dragged it out, grimacing at the caller ID. After the scene he'd had with Death, Kid didn't want to answer a call from his father, but he did it anyway.

Such a good boy. No matter what he does, I'm the dutiful son.

"Yes?" he asked, straining to keep his voice as steady as possible.

"I want you to come over to Stein's," Death said, getting right to the point, "Kami is starting to come around."

"Do you really think it's appropriate for me to see Maka's mother before she does?" Kid asked coldly.

His father sounded even chillier, "You want to know everything, with no secrets between us, and you're going to get it. So get your ass over here. Now."

The line went dead and, on cue, Kid heard tires rumbling over the cobblestones. A long, black limousine slid out of the shadows, coming for him like the embodiment of his dark future as a Reaper. Kid stood to meet it, knowing he had no choice but to get inside. He gave one last, longing glance at Maka's window, but there was no comfort for him there. He slid into the rear seat with all the dignity he could muster while Dave, the chauffeur, pointedly and kindly ignored him. He shut the door behind Kid, sealing him in before speeding away into the night.


	14. Chapter 14

_Broken bones, the fractures from injuries, are hard to recover from. Why do our internal fights feel like physical damages that hurt too much?_  
 _\- Juveria Fatima_

* * *

When Kami woke up, Lord Death, Kid, and Spirit were standing in a solemn line at the foot of her bed. Their funereal expressions amused her in spite of her pain and the drugs she was on. Or maybe she found them amusing _because_ of the drugs. That was far more likely because none of them was a barrel of laughs at the best of times. And this was far from the best of anything.

"Well, if it isn't the Father, the Son, and the Unholy Spirit," she said dryly. Her deep, honeyed voice was raspy and lacked its usual strength, but it still sent Spirit's heart soaring. That voice was the first thing he'd had noticed about her, and one of the reasons he'd fallen so hard in love with its owner.

"Thank god," he exclaimed, dashing to her side, "How are you feeling? Do you want some water? Are you in pain?"

"Of _course_ I'm in pain! Quit fussing!' she ordered. She tried to push him away, but her hand wouldn't move. Spirit latched on to the one that _did_ work and held it against his cheek.

"I was so worried!" The Death Scythe sniffled, and Kami felt tears on her skin.

"Can you just not?" she asked, rolling her eyes, "You always were too emotional for your own good. Besides, it's not like I'm glad to see you or anything. Cheater."

"I never thought I'd hear you call me that again!" Spirit sniffled, kissing the knuckles of the clenched fist he held.

Stein came in, looking as tired as Kami felt. She bet he had no idea that his infant daughter had spit up on his shoulder.

"You're awake," he said with a sleepy but genuine smile. Kami remembered that smile having sharp, dangerous edges to it, but they'd been blunted by love, fatherhood and years of teaching. It was a disconcerting change.

"Awake and annoyed," she replied, nodding her head at Spirit, "Can you help a girl out?"

"Okay, Spirit," Stein told his friend, "Let go. I need to look at my patient."

Spirit held on tighter, "You can't expect me to leave her side. She could have died. My beautiful, darling wife..."

"EX-wife," Stein, Kami and Lord Death said together. Spirit was suitably cowed and retreated to the foot of the bed, while Stein busied himself with taking vitals.

The patient used her newly freed arm to gesture to the heavy bandages on her other one.

"Damage report. And please tell me this is my original arm."

Stein clucked his tongue and leaned over to shine a penlight in her eyes.

"I think you're still woozy," he told her.

Kami gave him the sarcastic look she wore so well, but her smile was affectionate.

"Don't forget, I know you, Frank. I'm lucky I still have the same head I started with."

"Marie made me give that kind of thing up," Stein said solemnly.

"Seriously, though," Kami said when they got done laughing together, "How bad is it?"

"Broken collarbone," he replied, making a note of her blood pressure. It was elevated, but that was normal when she was around Spirit, "Thirty-one stitches in your right arm, and another fifty-seven in your back. Broken humerus, fractured radius, two broken fingers. The breaks are all clean, though. I didn't have to use any pins or screws."

"Sorry about that. I know you must be disappointed."

"That's okay; I got to take your spleen out to make up for it. You also have three cracked ribs and a bruised kidney on the right side."

Kami touched the steri-strips on her forehead and cheek, "What about these? Did you stitch my these up?" she sounded worried for the first time, and Stein knew she was thinking about the prominent scar he'd created across his own face.

"Don't worry, Spirit insisted on bringing in a facial reconstruction specialist from Johns Hopkins to fix those gashes."

Kami glanced over at Spirit, "Maybe I'm glad to see you again after all."

Spirit lit up like a Christmas tree, and Lord Death planted an arm across his scythe's chest to prevent him from leaping at her again.

"Do you feel like you're up to talking about what happened?" Death asked. The potent mix of grief in his voice instantly snuffed out the light mood in the room.

Kami's stomach flipped. Fuck. She'd forgotten to ask about Sophie. Damn drugs were screwing up her priorities and her professionalism. The numbers on her heartbeat and blood pressure monitors soared upward, and Stein told her to calm down.

"I'm sorry I let you down," she said, chastened.

Her boss gave a minute shake of his head, "Don't worry about it. We always knew this was a possibility and, frankly, you prevented it longer than I expected."

Kami didn't like that at all and frowned furiously.

"You _expected_ me to fail?" she asked.

Kid had seen that I-hate-losing look on Maka's face so many times. Had kissed it away, brushing back long hair that was nearly the same color as her mother's jaw-length waves. His hard-won composure faltered, and he glanced away, blinking rapidly to fight off tears, and hoping that no one noticed.

"You've been far more successful than I hoped," Lord Death replied, " Controlling a reaper, even one as weak as Sophie, is more than most humans are capable of. Others tried and failed, as you know. Managing the situation as long as you have says a lot about your talent and dedication, and I'm very grateful."

Shame replaced Kami's anger as he spoke. By the time her boss finished, she was staring down at her blanket, pleating it with nervous fingers.

"I could have controlled it a lot longer. I...I made a mistake. A really bad one, so don't praise me too much."

Death moved past Stein and sat on the edge of the bed.

"What happened?" he asked softly.

"I was writing an email to Maka. Telling her that I don't like how close she and Kid are becoming. I know more than most people how dangerous Reapers can be. I don't want her to get caught up in that. And I want Maka to have choices. I don't want her to miss out on personal and professional opportunities because of some teenage infatuation she has. I'm afraid she's going to limit herself because of their relationship."

She leaned past Lord Death to look at Kid, who stared back haughtily, "Sorry, Kiddo, but I want more for my daughter than to see her restricted to supporting your career. Anyone you're involved with is going to have to come second in the relationship. Maka is only seventeen. She hasn't had a chance to think about her own path yet but, according to her, you guys have already started talking about _marriage_."

"What?!" Spirit used his last reserves of energy to fuel outrage. He opened his mouth to release it, but Kami silenced him with a wave of her hand so she could continue, "Maka's got too much potential to stay in Death City playing society wife and maybe having a baby before she's twenty."

 _"You mean like you did?_ " Kid asked snidely. Fury did a neat job of pushing other emotions aside, and it was getting ready to take him over once again. He managed to keep his expression neutral, but beneath the dismissive facade, his eyes burned like coals. His body stiffened, and his fists came out of his pockets as he took a single, threatening step toward the bed. Lord Death knew his son was struggling to contain his temper and wondered how bad it was going to be if he lost it. The addition of Kami's criticism to his already critical stress level might be the tipping point that destroyed them all. He hurriedly changed the subject, hating himself for trying to quench his son's anger with misery.

"Enough of that for now," he said, "I need to know what happened with Sophie."


	15. Chapter 15

Kami didn't want to leave the comfy role of self-righteous mother and return to being The Person Who Has Fucked-Up Badly, but there was no help for it.

"There was an accident on the boulevard, right under my window. It looked pretty bad, so I ran down to see if I could help. I...I forgot to close my laptop." her anger returned, but now she was directing it at herself.

"Somebody," she said, grimacing at Spirit, "convinced me that Maka needed more contact with me than she was getting. In light of the things going on in her personal life, I'm not saying he was wrong, but it's safer to dash off a note or a postcard and send it to the mail drop right away. No evidence. The ONE time I forget and leave that damned computer open, there had to be information about Kid on the bloody thing!"

She punched the mattress and immediately regretted it. She'd only managed a weak blow, but the movement was enough to wrench a pained gasp out of her.

"Whoa!" Lord Death exclaimed, "Take it easy!"

"That was not one of my better ideas," Kami admitted when she unclenched her teeth.

Stein broke in and informed her that one more outburst like that was going to get her sedated again.

"Okay, okay!" she replied, then turned back to her narrative, "Sophie must've gone into my room to see what all the fuss was about and saw Kid's name on my screen. She was waiting for me at the top of the stairs when I came back in, holding the laptop, and I'll never forget how betrayed she looked. She was shaking like a leaf, and I thought she was scared. I didn't realize it was something else until it was too late."

Lord Death inhaled sharply but motioned for her to continue, forcing Kami to relive the memory.

 _"My son is alive?" Sophie asked as Kami climbed the steps toward her, "Alive all this time, and you never told me? You let me think...for all these years you let me think he was dead? You let me think that I killed him?"_

 _Her voice shook, and tears ran down her cheeks. She dropped her head, hugging the laptop to her chest as if her lost son was cradled inside of it_

 _Kami hurried up the steps toward her, "It was for the best," she whispered, "It was the only way to keep Kid safe. You would have tried to go back to him if you knew."_

 _"You're my best friend! I trusted you, and you kept this from me!" Sophie hissed. Her head snapped up, and glowing eyes with pinprick pupils bore into Kami's. Her usual sweet, vagueness was splintering, revealing the calculating psychotic it had been burying for so long. Too late, she realized that the show fear and sadness had been an act to lure her in._

 _"I didn't want to! " Kami lied, trying to buy herself a little time. She backed up slowly, hoping to gain access to the hallway, or at least get away from the stairs, "I was just following orders."_

 _Years of living with a docile and dreamy charge had lulled Kami into complacency, and when the attack came, it was faster and harder than she had anticipated. Sophie threw the computer at her, and it wasn't until Kami caught it that she realized her mistake._

 _She should have stayed on the steps, where it was easier to create a quick distance. She definitely shouldn't have raised her arms to protect her head from the laptop. That left her midsection exposed, and Sophie hit it with preternatural strength. Bones cracked, and pain raced up Kami's side. Before she recovered from the blow, Sophie whipped out a wicked little garter dagger and went for her keeper's eyes._

 _Kami deflected the attack with the laptop. Not entirely, but at least she saved her sight. The dagger's point clicked against her skull when it punctured her forehead. Kami forced her opponent's arm upward, then screamed as the blade bounced along the forearm she threw up to protect her face. The knife came down for a second attempt, and Kami felt the point against her tongue as the blade punctured her cheek. She grabbed Sophie's wrist and twisted it as hard as she could, rolling her body to add power to the move. Sophie dropped the blood-slicked blade Kami swatted it as hard as she could, feeling a brief moment of elation as it clattered down the stairs._

 _Then Sophie's nails ripped down her back, and Kami remembered that with a Reaper's strength powering her, Sophie didn't *need* a knife to hurt her; she simply enjoyed sharp, pointy things. Kami's arm snapped in two places as she was hurled toward the ceiling like a rag doll. Ten feet off the ground, she hit the wall, pushed off of it, and used the loft to propel herself backward. That she was able to flip in midair and land on her feet was a testament to her stellar skills as a technician. She had some distance now, and in spite of Sophie's superior speed, made it to safety in the upstairs parlor. Kami clicked the lock an instant before Sophie hit the door. She ran to the big wall mirror, thanking her lucky stars that she'd had the foresight to have one installed in every room..._

"And you know the rest," she finished, quietly, "I'm just lucky that you opened the portal before she caught up with me."

Lord Death didn't even try to hide the tears in his golden eyes.

"Your talent and strength saved you," he avowed, "The word 'lucky' has no place in this for any of us."

Kid couldn't listen for another second. His entire world had just imploded, and they were discussing his mother's reappearance like a routine mission that had gone awry. Worse yet, they'd started joking around the minute Kami woke up as if their monumental lies were the last thing on their minds. Like they didn't care, or even _notice_ , that he was right in front of them and being forced to listen to their bullshit. He wanted to knock their heads together until their soft little human brains scrambled like eggs. And as for his father...

"Why didn't I know?" he burst out. Rage set his power building again, and everyone leaned away from him, afraid of what those clenched fingers might release. Lord Death stood up, effectively shielding Kami. Without a word, Spirit went to his boss' side, prepared to go into weapon form at a second's notice. Only a careful observer could have detected the sudden change in Stein. His casual posture didn't change, but he went hard and still, poised to strike should the need arise.

"I should have been able to tell. My soul perception is almost as strong as Maka's. I should have _known_ Maman was alive." Kid glared at his father, "What did you _do_?"

"I had Blair cast a Soul Protect on your mother," Lord Death admitted, "Haven't you ever wondered why I allowed a witch live in Death City, even if she was only a cat? I owed her a favor. And I wanted her close in case the spell ever faltered. Spirit kept a close eye on her for me."

Kami gave a disgusted little snort, "Yeah, I'm sure eyes were all he had on her. Riiiiiight."

Spirit felt her sarcastic look drill into the back of his skull and hurriedly changed the subject.

"How is Maka holding up?" he asked virtuously. _He_ was worried about his sweet Maka, instead of focusing on minutiae. _Take that, Kami!_

All the fire drained out of Kid, leaving a miserable, confused teenager behind.

"I don't know," he almost whispered, "Angry. I guess I'd say she's really, really, angry."

Lord Death tried to put a hand on his son's shoulder, but Kid stepped back, preferring not to be touched by the person who had brought so much tragedy down on him. Whose lies had driven a wedge between him and Maka. A breach that might not heal. Tears welled again, and he angrily rubbed them off with the cuff of the soft blue shirt Liz had brought him.

"She's not mad at you," he hastened to tell Kami, when he'd gotten himself under control, "At me. We had a huge fight about all of this, and now she's blocking our bond. I'm sorry that I upset her more than she already was."

Kami watched him searchingly and realized that the news about Sophie was taking a distant second to the boy's wretchedness over her daughter. Even though she thought Kid's relationship with Maka was a dangerously overinflated fascination, he obviously put her above anyone else. Including himself.

"Well, this is a mess," she said glumly.

"Have you tried talking to her again?" Spirit asked, "Maybe if you went to see her..."

"I did, but she wouldn't see me. That's when we fought."

"Give her time, " Kami suggested, "Maka's a lot like me; she doesn't like being pushed; it just makes her mad. And the madder you make her, the longer it takes her to get over it."

"Don't I know it," Spirit whined, "Even after I apologized and apologized, you still divorced me, and turned Maka against me- "

Kami heaved an exaggerated sigh, "This is not about _you_ ," she reminded her former husband. He turned his best tragic expression on her, but she stuck her tongue out at him and turned away as much as she was able to.

"Pardon me, but may I be excused?" Kid interrupted politely. He didn't want to discuss Maka with her disapproving parents, and he _definitely_ didn't feel like attending anyone else's pity party at the moment.

Lord Death nodded, "Go ahead. I'll need to speak to you again, but that can wait until I get home."

"Dave is waiting downstairs with the car. Shall I take it, or will you be needing it?" Kid finally managed to force his emotions behind the facade of formality that he'd built to protect himself from the painful realities that had buffeted him for the past ten years.

"No," his father said, "You take it. I don't want you driving or flying when you're upset."

"Thank you for your concern. I'll be in my room if you need me," he wished Kami a speedy recovery, nodded at the other adults and calmly took his leave. A moment later they heard his measured steps in the hall become a run as he sought escape.

"He is really fucked up," Kami told Lord Death, "Just stating the obvious."

"I'll try to have Marie talk to him."

Kami was exasperated, " _You_ need to talk to him, for fuck's sake! Children need their parents!"

The others shot "you should talk" glances her way, but she held firm, "Kid just had the biggest truth bomb of all time blow up in his face, and _you_ have to help him get through it."

Death massaged his throbbing temples, wishing that he could scrub away the last several hours out of existence.

"I doubt he wants my help at the moment. Kid's love and trust for me was already shaky. I may have lost them for good this time."


	16. Chapter 16

He was so tired. All he wanted to do was go to bed and stay there. For the rest of his repulsively long life, maybe. If he had any feeling left, it was gratitude for the silence of the newly-appointed guards, and that the none of the staff were in evidence. Kid couldn't imagine having a polite conversation at the moment. He trudged up the stairs, head hanging so low that all he could see were his shoes.

One of Sid's hard-looking soldiers was stationed on the upstairs landing, keeping watch over the halls. Kid felt the guard's eyes on the back of his neck as he slogged toward his suite and realized that the man was not just there to protect the household from his mother, but from _him_ as well. He quelled an absurd urge to go back and explain himself to a total stranger and apologize for being an inconvenience.

He entered his bedroom and was shocked to find a low fire burned, and a couple of lamps lighting the room softly. A clean pair of pajamas lay across his bed, and someone had turned the sheets back for him. A tray on his nightstand held a covered plate, and a monogrammed notecard bore Liz' untidy scrawl.

 _Eat something and go to bed. Things won't be any less shitty if you stay up all night and starve yourself. We'll figure all of this out together. Don't be too mad at your dad - he fucked up, but he was legit trying to protect you. We won't bother you, but if you want us, Patty and I are here. XOX_

A thermal carafe beside the plate bore a pink sticky note from Patty.

 _I'm sorry things are so messed up, but I love you SO much! P.S. I made you hot chocolate with cinnamon and vanilla in it!_

A row of hearts underlined her round, loopy signature. Kid smiled, and the expression felt foreign, as though his facial muscles no longer wanted to move in that particular direction. Like he hadn't smiled in years. It didn't seem possible that only hours ago he'd been blissfully happy in these rooms, loved and loving. He glanced at the nightstand on the far side of the bed, where someone had stacked Maka's bulging training notebook atop the battered copy of _The Cider House Rules_ she'd been reading before bed two nights ago. She'd been wearing a polka-dotted nightshirt and occasionally gave him a break from working on his father's Death List by reading passages aloud to him...

 _No_. He wouldn't think about that. Could not, or he'd go mad. Kid tried to distract himself by changing into the pajamas but fell apart when he went to put his despair-tainted clothes in the hamper. The staff had cleaned the bathroom and closet. The sweaty practice clothes he and Maka had discarded, the sand on the closet floor, the towel he'd dried her hair with; all gone as if Maka had never been there. As if she hadn't come to him for comfort, distressed by a problem that seemed ridiculously small compared to the ones they faced now. He flashed back to the feel of Maka's chin in the crook of his shoulder, heard her whispered words of adoration in his ear, felt her hot, urgent body as he thrust into her against the cool white tile-

A wave of panicked anguish washed over him, too deep to be dispelled by tears and too dark to be pushed to that back of his consciousness. It consumed him, set him shaking, took what was left of his rational thought, and left him struggling to breathe. There was a time when such torment was his constant companion. A time before Maka had healed him with a bit of her soul; a bit that he had to carry even though she had gone, taking a piece of his own with her. Kid had grown used to the constant bond between those pieces, and the blocking of it left a blank space; a black echo chamber where his sweetheart was supposed to be.

He ran back to his bedroom, where his eyes lit on the quilt his mother had made so long ago, and the sight of it nauseated him. He yanked it off the bed with a vicious tug and hurled it across the room. Pillows flew, and the sheets hung halfway to the floor afterward; disorder that Kid couldn't stop staring at while gasping and fumbling for his phone.

 _I need you_ he posted to the group chat that was always open between him and his weapons. Five minutes later, his head was resting on Liz' shoulder, with Patty's arms wrapped around him from behind. Liz initiated a low-level resonance that Kid resisted, afraid to let anything disrupt the tenuous hold he had on himself. It was, she thought grimly, just like old times. Eventually, they got him to sink into the soul bond, silently reminding him could always trust his sisters with his troubled mind and soul.

"Let's go to my room," Liz suggested gently when she knew that words were okay again. She glanced through Patty's hair at the ravaged bed, "This isn't a good place for you right now."

"That would be nice," Kid replied. He sounded odd, but at least he was speaking, and that seemed like a good sign.

Patty took the tray, and they headed for the west hallway, stopping briefly in the upstairs foyer when the guard questioned them.

"We're going to my room," Liz told him haughtily.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea, Miss Thompson," the man replied, staring meaningfully at Kid.

Patty gave a little snort and said, "Bad move, mister," under her breath.

"Listen, you," Liz snapped, "When my father isn't here _I'm_ in charge of this house. We're going to my suite, and if we need help controlling my _little brother_ , you'll be the first to know. Until then, you stay put and don't bother us. Got that?"

"Yes, Ma'am," The guard didn't flinch under the verbal assault, but he immediately stood aside. And saluted. Patty giggled uncontrollably, and If he hadn't been so miserable, Kid would have joined her. His spirits somewhat improved, he allowed himself to be fed, fussed over, and distracted until sleep finally found him, and he sprawled across Liz' bed into blissful unconsciousness.


	17. Chapter 17

Soul stared into his coffee cup, trying to build up the willpower for another sip. The caffeine would do him a world of good. If it stayed down, that is. Sleep might have helped, but there had been precious little of that. If he never faced a family tragedy after getting wasted again, it would be just fine with Soul. Now that Maka had settled down, and three Aleve had eased the throbbing behind his eyes a little, maybe he could catch a quick nap. He put his cup down, yanked Maka's fluffy yellow throw over his legs, and gingerly eased himself into a prone position. Fuck, his head hurt.

He got precisely six minutes of peace before the pounding started. It beat a counterpoint to the thumping in his brain and was accompanied by loud demands to open the door. He wanted to pull the blanket over his head and ignore it, but that would only prolong the inevitable. The very last person Soul wanted to see right now was Black Star, but the damn banging wouldn't stop unless he did.

"Shut up! I'm coming. Jesus." Soul hollered, forcing himself to his feet. His stomach lurched dangerously, but he managed to answer the door without puking.

"Nobody's at practice _or_ answering their phones. I know the rest of you are wussy losers compared to me but-" Black Star finally registered Soul's face and paused.

"Dude, you look like shit," he finished.

"Black Star! That's not nice!" Tsubaki, reached past him and put a gentle hand on Soul's arm, "Soul, are you okay?"

"We had a bad night," Soul ushered Tsubaki and Black Star into the apartment and collapsed back on the couch. The room took a lap around him, and Soul's stomach rolled again, reminding him to keep movement to a minimum

"What happened?" Black Star asked, "You guys get your asses kicked on a mission?"

"No! I...uh, can't really talk about what happened," Soul replied wearily, "But Maka's skipping school today, and I'm gonna stay home with her."

Tsubaki's look of concern deepened, but Black Star's face lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Little Miss Goodie Two Shoes is skipping? Ha!" he ran to Maka's door and slammed it open, failing to notice the missing doorknob. After her years of high and mighty nagging about skipping school, Maka was going to get a taste of her own medicine.

"Hey loser! You blew off practice, _and_ I hear you're skipping today! What happened to being all perfect? Maybe there's hope for you yet!" he gloated. But Maka didn't rise to his bait, and that's when Black Star knew things were seriously fucked up. She should have been up and yelling by now, not hunching into an ever-smaller ball on her bed. She was pale, and the circles under her eyes were almost as dark as the purple stripes in her old flannel pajamas.

"I can't today. I just...can't," she mumbled.

Black Star tried to think of a response to that and eventually came up with, "Uh, are you sick or something? You look shittier than Soul does."

It took her a couple of tries to get started, but Maka finally managed to tell her oldest friend that Kami was back in Death City and how severely injured she was. Before she finished Black Star was across the room and enveloping her in a smothering hug. Maka felt his soul darken with worry and threw her arms around his neck. Unbelievably, of all things... _Black Star_...was what she needed. The person who shared her childhood memories; who had called Kami his "Other Mother" when they were growing up. Who'd also felt betrayed when Kami disappeared, even though his swagger prevented him from showing it. That Black Star knew and shared her grief brought Maka comfort that not even Soul's devoted friendship could provide.

"Where has she been? Did you get a chance to talk to her?" Black Star asked. Maka had never experienced such gentleness in him, and it almost snapped her resolution not to break down. Her voice wobbled dangerously when she told him that Kami hadn't had a chance to talk before being rushed into surgery.

The news dredged old childhood memories to the surface for Black Star. Kami reading in the sun while he and Maka played in the Albarns' back yard.

 _"Look at me! Look!" his six-year-old self had demanded, "I can do ten pushups!"_

 _"That's good, but you can do better. Let me know when you can do twenty, and I'll come and look then," Kami had replied, eyes glued to her book. Black Star could do_ thirty _pushups by the end of the day._

"When can we see her?" he asked Maka.

"I'm going over as soon as Doctor Stein or my dad calls me," she said, swiping at an errant tear, "If they say she's ready for visitors I'll let you know right away."

"You can, you know, cry if you want to," Black Star told her awkwardly, "I won't make fun of you or anything. I won't even tell anyone. Pinky promise."

He held his little finger out, and Maka gave him a watery half-smile, "I'm trying not to be a baby about this. But thanks for the offer." She leaned over to grab a tissue from her nightstand, giving Black Star his first opportunity to look around.

"Where's Kid?" he asked Maka when she'd finished blowing her nose, "In the bathroom?"

Maka shook her head and pressed her lips into a thin line so that they wouldn't tremble when she told him that Kid wasn't around and wouldn't be coming around anytime soon.

Black Star made his, "I don't believe you" face; the one he'd perfected during their childhood obsession with playing "Go Fish'. Maka might be capable of lying about having a purple octopus in her hand, but they weren't four anymore, and this was Kid they were talking about.

"Did you _tell_ him? He acts like the world's ending if you get a bloody nose at practice; there's no way he's gonna let you go through this alone. Not that you're alone; _I'm_ better at being supportive than he'll ever be, but the guy loves you more than he loves breathing. Or stupid symmetry. So where is he?"

He didn't think Maka could look any worse, but she did when she repeated that Kid wouldn't be coming over.

"What, did you guys have a _fight_?" Black Star chuckled at the sheer improbability of such a thing. Maka nodded in affirmation right before she lost her fight for composure. In a few short hours, she and Kid had gone from being a rock-solid couple bound soul to soul, to separate individuals who weren't speaking to each other. The perfect Kid-and-Maka construct had crumbled, and nothing would ever be the same. The sobs she'd been holding back all night burst out in a wave of hysteria that scared the shit out of Black Star. He'd heard Liz used the term "ugly cry" and suspected this was what she'd meant. He'd never seen anybody cry so hard, not even Tsubaki after she'd been forced to kill her brother, or Nygus when they thought they'd lost Sid. Then again, Tsubaki teared up over sad movies, so he was kind of used to seeing her get emotional, and he'd grown up knowing that Nygus had a soft, gooey center hidden beneath her badass exterior. Maka didn't cry very often, but she was also never one to do things halfway. Having decided to give in to tears, she gave it her all, and it was terrifying. Black Star pulled her into his arms again and felt tears run down his bicep.

"You both have shitty tempers," he said encouragingly, "But whatever happened, you can work it out. I mean, you guys love each other like...like...really a lot. With your mom and stuff, you're probably not thinking straight. I'll tell you what; I'll go to school today even though you and Soul aren't, and I'll bring your homework over."

The offer shocked Maka enough that she could speak almost coherently. "Why are you so...being so nice to me?" she blubbered.

Black Star grinned and tousled her already-wrecked hair, "No honor in being better than somebody who's totally fucked up."

He hugged her again, and a fresh bout of wailing began. Tsubaki appeared, and her usual sweet gentleness was not in evidence.

"Black Star! What are you _DOING_?" she demanded in the "I'm going to kick your ass" tone that her partner feared above most things.

"Nothing! I didn't do anything!" his voice pitched into a panicked squeak, and on any other day, Maka would have enjoyed a good laugh at his expense. Instead, she sniffled hard and told Tsubaki that everything was okay.

"Maka, it doesn't look like everything is okay," Tsubaki said tenderly. Unlike her partner, she noticed the misshapen doorknob on the ground and the heat-scorched plate it had been attached to. Books and an empty, broken picture frame lay on the tile, tangled up in discarded, bloodstained clothes.

"I'll be okay," Maka promised, "Eventually. I just want to sit here with Black Star for a while, okay?"=

Tsubaki returned to the living room looking utterly dumbfounded. "Maka says she's fine," she said slowly, "But her bedroom is a mess, there are bloody clothes on the floor, her doorknob is _melted,_ and she's asking to be alone with Black Star. She's obviously _not_ fine. And if Maka's upset like this, then why isn't Kid here? Is he okay?"

"It's...not our business," Soul muttered, squinting against the morning light that felt like it was burning directly into his brain, "All we can do right now is be here for Maka."

"It looks like you could use a little help, too," Tsubaki said kindly. She closed the blinds and Soul slumped against the sofa cushions in relief, "God, thanks. I might be coming down with something. I feel like total crap.

Tsubaki knew a hangover when she saw one; this was not her first Drunk Boy Morning-After rodeo, "I'm going to make you some weak tea and dry toast," she announced, heading to the kitchen, "Maybe it'll help cure that Whiskey flu you've got."


	18. Chapter 18

_"Maybe it's just a daughter's job to piss off her mother."_

 _\- Chuck Palahniuk_

"Mama!" Maka flung herself at her mother, groping hungrily for a hug.

"Ouch! Don't jostle, Maka!" pain sharpened Kami's voice, and Maka backed contritely into the chair beside the bed. She slipped her injured hand between her thigh and the side of the chair, but her mother had sharp eyes.

"What happened?" she demanded, glaring at Maka's finger. Her daughter hurried to reassure her that it was nothing to be worried about, but Kami wasn't having any of it.

"Is it broken?" she asked.

Maka nodded, "Yes, but it doesn't hurt all that much." she held up the injury for inspection, "I'm just glad it's only one finger or I couldn't-"

"You need both hands to fight," Kami interrupted, "How long will you be out of commission?"

"About three weeks."

Kami flopped back onto her pillow, "Well, that's just dandy," she grumbled, "Almost a month. You're going to get rusty."

Maka dropped her hurt hand into her lap and guiltily hid it with the other, "Sorry, Mama! I don't want you worrying about me. What about you? Are you feeling any better? Can I get you anything? Do you-"

Kami sighed, "Your father has been here fussing all night. Please don't tell me you're here to follow in his footsteps. I'm not sure I can take much more coddling, honestly."

Maka longed to do something. Performing any little service for her mother would be balm to her battered soul, but she forced her desires down. This wasn't, she reminded herself, about her.

"Papa is such a pain," She said, retreating to a familiar place of solidarity between them. A common problem to be shared and clucked over.

"He's not so bad," Kami replied, "Misguided, hysterical, and completely incapable of keeping his hands off other women, but not so bad."

"I - what? What do you mean, Mama? He _cheated_ on you!" Maka's eyes widened in shock, "You hate him!"

"Not anymore. If anything, he amuses me these days." Kami smiled slyly, "Besides, it's nice to know he's never gotten over me. I like being the one that got away - it has a certain power to it, you know? And I've had better things to do than carrying around old grudges for the last few years."

Maka picked at a loose bit of tape on her splint, unable to look her mother when she asked, "Like watching Kid's-I mean, Sophie?"

"Yes. You don't waste time on old arguments when you have more important things on your mind. Do you know how she is?" Kami leaned forward in anticipation, showing her first real interest in the conversation.

"I have no idea." Maka said stiffly, "Why do you even care, Mama? That crazy woman tried to kill you yesterday and-"

Kami cut her off again, "Of course I care! It was my job to look out for her, and I failed. We told her Kid was dead, and I let the cat out of the bag by leaving my computer open. The poor woman had a psychotic break, and it was all my fault. It'll take me ages to regain her trust-"

It was Maka's turn to interrupt, "You're not going to go _back_ to her, are you? She's dangerous! I thought maybe you'd be able to stay here now. Until you get a different assignment, at least. We could hang out, and you could help me figure out the new technique I'm designing for Lord Death. Can't you stay, Mama? I've missed you so much," she knew she was perilously close to whining, but Maka had to make her mother see that she was needed. And that spending any more time with Sophie was a terrible idea.

Kami shrugged dismissively, "You're a big girl. You'll figure that new technique out on your own, and you know it. You just have to want it bad enoughnad devote all your attention to it. I don't want you leaning on anybody to prop up all that strength you have, not even me. No daughter of _mine_ is going to be a weak underachiever. And yes, I'll be taking Sophie away from Death City as soon as I'm better, and she's stable enough."

Anger reddened Maka's face, "So you're leaving me _again_? I don't understand why you me left the first time."

"Don't be so dramatic!" Kami huffed, "You were plenty old enough to take care of yourself when I left, and you're certainly old enough now. Kami is my best friend. What was I supposed to do, tell Lord Death that I was turning down a plum assignment that he specifically wanted _me_ for because I had to stay here and play wife and mommy? I've wasted too much of my life supporting your father's career, and I wanted out of this little godforsaken place, anyway."

Maka leaped up, eyes blazing, "You call being a glorified babysitter a plum assignment? And I was _not_ old enough to be without a mom; I was _twelve_! I haven't seen you once in five years, and you can't wait to take off again ASAP? Why did you even _have_ me if you hate being a mother so much?"

Kami's brow furrowed, "I will not let you talk to me like that, Maka. I never said I didn't want you. But I'm also not staying in Death City to be one of those helicopter moms who monitors everything their kids do. I raised you to be a strong woman, and you are. As for Sophie-"

"Oh, _fuck_ Sophie!," Maka snapped, "I'm sick of her. You don't know how much she screwed Kid up. She almost killed him _and_ you, and even thinking about her hurts Lord Death. You want to know know what happened to my finger? _She_ broke it because she wanted her ring. The one Kid gave me when he thought she was _dead_! Nygus said I was lucky it's only a fracture. That bitch is a reaper, and she could have ripped it off completely! Imagine how long I'd be out of commission if _that_ happened. She almost _maimed_ me, and all you're worried about is that I'll get behind in my training and how soon you can take off with her again? Really?"

Kami was sitting up now, poised like she might lunge out of bed at her daughter "Yes I'm worried about your training," she said frostily, "There is no second place, or have you forgotten that? The most important thing for me right now is fixing the mess I've made, and you ought to think about _your_ priorities too. In the meantime, maybe you should come back after you've had time to calm down."

Maka turned away, every muscle vibrating with fury, "Maybe I don't _want_ to be number one if it means not caring about anything or anybody except work and my ego. I'll come back when I calm down, but just so you know, that might take a while."

Soul was sitting in the hall outside Kami's room. When the yelling started, he'd popped his earbuds in and cranked up the volume on his phone. He'd had his fill of drama, and he'd learned a long time ago not to get involved in the weird relationship between Maka and her mother. If his partner wanted him to know what was happening in there, she'd tell him. But when she slammed the hospital room door open hard enough to be heard over one of Soil and Pimp Sessions' loudest offerings, Soul had to assume the visit hadn't been a good one. He paused his music and pulled one AirPod out.

"You okay?" he asked. He knew Maka almost as well as he knew himself; he could see the little-girl hurt hidden behind her anger. She snagged him by the sleeve.

"We need to go," she announced, ignoring his query and dragging him behind her.

"Slow down! Need to go where?" Soul hoped the answer was "get coffee" or "go home and have a nap," but the steel in her voice made those remote possibilities.

"To work," Maka said grimly.

A half-hour later, she dropped Soul on the practice field and sat down hard, dropping her forehead on knees and gasping for breath.

"Okay, stop. This is insane," Soul muttered through their bond. Said bond lacked its usual smooth flow; it was as gritty, grinding like power drill on a stripped screw. Soul transformed and lay back on the grass, pinching the bridge of his nose. Maka knew anger impeded her resonance and her moves, yet here she was, flailing away like a pissed-off thirteen-year-old. Only she had a lot more power than she'd had back then, including the bit of Kid's Reaper strength that made her downright dangerous.

"You need to calm down," Soul said, reaching up to pat her back, "You're going to start blowing shit up in a minute."

Maka was deadly pale, but her glare was fiery. Her partner knew she was about to unleash a furious denial at him and sat up quickly.

"Plus, you've only got nine working fingers," he reminded her, gently lifting her injured hand up between them. Looking at her splinted ring finger created a wave of fury that knocked Maka flat on the ground. She kicked wildly, pounded the one fist she could make, and screamed her frustration into the dirt. Soul sat next to her silently, keeping a steady palm on her back until she finally exhausted herself and lay still. He waited a couple of beats before asking if she was upset about her mom, or Kid, or both.

"Both," she replied, choking on a tiny sob.

"Don't be too hard on Kid," Soul said, "you guys were both freaked out last night. I don't know what happened with your mom back there, but at least you knew she was alive. Kid saw his come back from the dead; I can't imagine how fucked up he must be. Him coming over and having that fit...he's not that kind of guy, especially with someone he loves."

"Yeah, he really acted like he loved me last night," the words ground out, hot and bitter, from between clenched teeth.

Soul sighed and, "Truth is everybody's gonna hurt you. You just gotta find the ones worth suffering for. Bob Marley said that, by the way, not me."

Make sat up and rubbed at the dirt on her face, "I don't give a fuck about what Bob Marley said! Not only did Kid not protect me from his nutty mother, he threw me across the room like I might hurt the crazy bitch! I literally heard him tell Liz that Sophie is all he cares about, so where does that leave me? And then we had that fight, and he said we should break up. If he's gonna act like that, is he worth suffering for?"

"You were pretty nuts yourself," Soul reminded her, "And he'd never act like that if he was in his right mind, so, yeah, I think he's worth it but you're the only person who can convince yourself of that."

She was silent, and Soul was afraid he'd re-ignited her anger, but she was all burned out.

"I can't think about it right now. My mom, Kid...it's all too confusing. She's completely different, and Kid and I - we've had little spats and differences, but nothing major. I thought we had this really perfect thing going on, but maybe it just felt like that because nothing's ever really tested us before. Maybe we're not as good together as I thought we were."

Soul squeezed her shoulder and climbed to his feet, "Com'on," he said, extending his hand, "Let's go home. I'm starving."

She didn't move.

"I'll make dinner," he said in a wheedling tone, "Something greasy and bad for us. Like a whole bag of tater tots covered with chili and cheese."

She gave him a wan smile and let him pull her to her feet. "But it's my night to cook. Not like you haven't had a rough day yourself."

"Screw the schedule, I'll do it." he waved off her protest and slipped a comforting arm across her sweaty shoulders, "Besides, if I let you cook you're gonna sneak something healthy in there, and I am not about that life tonight."


End file.
